Archive of Our Own

There have been precious few times Soleum’s been unable to slip into a set of clothing, most often occurring in his youth after he’d hit yet another pubertal speed bump on his path to adulthood, and most recently after he had picked up the wrong size of dress shirt in his rush to exit the department store after a long day of work. Even less often, at a striking tally of zero, has he been unable to slip out of a set of clothing; after all, if it’s able to get on, it’s able to get off. Except—when it’s time to peel off the special security suit given to him by Director Ho, shortly after the sergeant strikes Kwak Jaekang, knocking him straight unconscious—it won’t budge. The zipper that lines the seam, which Soleum distinctly remembers having previously pulled shut, is missing. He pats around the suit blindly, almost managing to convince himself he’s simply misremembered where the way out ought to be. Soleum blanches when a second search similarly comes up short.

By now, the sergeant has slipped out with Supervisor Park Minseong—the pair carrying Kwak Jaekang’s limp body between the two of them as they set out to deal with the researcher in a manner that won’t stir up any suspicion. Soleum’s steps are the slightest bit stiffer as he retrieves Braun from where he’s been sitting and enjoying the show.

[Ah, staying in costume even after the show, what a remarkable commitment to the role!]

He shouldn’t have doubted even for the slightest bit that an entity like Braun wouldn’t miss a detail like that, though the plush rabbit bulldozes onwards through the rest of his review, more interested in Soleum’s acting than his appearance.

[As expected, it was a remarkable performance—clever, tricky, intriguing! You did it all.]

Soleum’s mind wanders as he mentally goes through the initial, rudimentary set of possibilities he had briefly thought up. His resulting response to Braun’s commentary is subsequently absent-minded: ‘Is that so?’ He pauses, before adding, ‘It wasn’t awkward?’

[It was perfect—you didn’t even bat at an eye when that man mentioned your real identity! Truly riveting.]

Braun walks through the cover-up plan for this incident, speaking mostly to himself as Soleum responds in succinct sentences. Thankfully, he seems satisfied enough as he comments on the clever reasoning behind Soleum’s choices throughout the interrogation.

Braun falls into a brief bout of silence, just as Soleum’s well and fully declared himself stuck—the material doesn’t lend even an inch in attempts to lift it away from his skin, as if in the span of mere minutes it’s turned into body paint.

[Mr. Roe Deer, are we having a wardrobe malfunction?]

Soleum stiffens, not keen on giving this new version of his Good Friend leverage on him and the fact that he quite possibly might be compromised. Still, there is next to nothing he can do aside from admit to the predicament, given its glaring presence. Just as he thinks to respond, his phone buzzes. Braun doesn’t reiterate his question, instead encouraging him to check on the message he’s received instead. He slowly follows the instructions, more than a little wary of the note of glee coursing through the rabbit’s words.

Soleum’s brow furrows at the ID of the messenger. It’s someone who would not be at the bottom of a list of the people he least expected to text right now—simply because he would have forgotten to add him. That is, K. Lee. His prior bewilderment turns into full-on confusion as he reads through the contents of the messages the man is still sending. His eyebrows climb maybe an inch higher on his face as a slight chill settles over Soleum’s body, even through the suit. The uncomfortable sense of incongruity that had started creeping in upon discovering that his zipper was missing has evolved into uninhibited foreboding. The paranoid, anxious thoughts previously present as a slight hum in the back of his mind have crescendoed into a fever pitch. He turns around in alarm just as the voice rings out across the office.

“So it’s like that.”

It’s Agent Choi.

Soleum swallows roughly around the lump in his throat. It tastes of guilt and sorrow, but not regret. Choi is holding the note Soleum had given to him earlier, and he’s making noises which rush past his ears like white water, definitely meant to be intelligible words. Somewhere through his greetings, that word comes out. He can tell from the shape of Choi’s lips as they move: Spy. And in doing so, his body reacts even before his mind, dodging reflexively as Agent Choi’s blades follow in the wake of Soleum’s betrayal—an unstoppable tidal wave.

He stumbles, unable to dodge the second strike that comes his way entirely as it pins him in place for a scant few seconds. The moment the marble, the one Soleum knows is for the glass prison, descends upon the floor and rings out, he scrambles like hell and narrowly avoids the initial radius of its attack. The arms shoot out from their inconspicuous container and bound towards him. Resistance is futile, Soleum vaguely realizes as they drag him in. The security suit flickers wildly as he helplessly claws at the floor, his lantern casting wild and impressive shadows on the walls of the office.

Agent Choi’s inspection is composed, slightly chilly, and nothing at all like the playful demeanour he was wont to carry around their team’s office. He crouches in front of the now-immobile marble on the floor and examines it with a complicated expression. Choi grasps the prison tightly within his hand, unaware of the similarly tumultuous scenario occurring within it as Braun rejects Soleum’s plea for help.

Soleum’s heart stops when he doesn’t hear a response after Braun directly tells him that he values entertainment over Soleum’s life. Although the Disaster Management Bureau was highly unlikely to eliminate him if he didn’t present as a threat, he notes with a bitterness  perhaps disproportionate to the scope of Braun’s action. He was, after all, acting as expected. Unwilling to spend more brainpower on that particular sequence of events, Soleum pivots into speaking with Agent Choi instead.

He examines the crumpled piece of paper within the man’s hands a second time with a heavy heart, and opens his mouth. Soleum freezes, gut rolling with a sudden spike of anxiety as he tries to speak and his crystalline enclosure fills with dark, heady smoke instead.  

+++

“What the… ?”

When the marble in Choi’s hand turns pitch black, he hesitates between proceeding as initially planned and immediately returning back to the bureau’s glass prison, or figuring out what the hell is going on with the prisoner. His mind flashes what he’d seen just moments prior—a towering frame, blazing yellow eyes, and most of all, a distinct lack of human features. Although he had followed Grapes’, no, Kim Soleum’s lead to this location, he hadn’t believed that the creature who entered was him.

But then the researcher had said something, and the puzzle pieces had piled together in the hazy form of a larger picture. He texted the number with a healthy amount of disbelief, almost dropping the phone when the man in front of him pulled out his phone in response. And then it was time to step out.

So yes, the man trapped in his hand is most likely Kim Soleum,  who for some unknown reason, looks like one of the unfortunate souls that end their employment with Daydream contaminated beyond all hope. The bitter thought that perhaps he is now one of those unfortunate souls strikes him. Choi startles, a nigh imperceptible twitch, when the ball in his hand begins vibrating at high speed. He narrows his eyes. Surely the spy wouldn’t be able to break out… ? But  if there was one thing Soleum had proven himself capable of doing over and over, it was the impossible.

His eyes widen in disbelief at the sight occurring before him. Cracks lacerate the prison—supposedly the bureau’s high-security containment capsule, something no human’s been able to escape before. Not for long, anyway. He supposes, with a note of cynicism, that if Soleum is not human then it does not matter much at all.

In an unfortunate unfolding of circumstances, it’s his very focus that prevents him from noticing the sergeant’s entry into the room—a self-fulfilling prophecy. The sergeant’s ensuing attack forces the marble out of Choi’s hands, shattering it against the wall and immediately darkening the room as the smoke starts to spread and cling like pitch to a chimney.

Soleum—or rather, what had been masquerading as Soleum—rolls into a combative stance almost immediately. Choi mirrors him, blade in hand, ready to strike. He dodges a heavy punch aimed his way, putting himself squarely in between the two others in the room whilst still facing them. The man that had entered the room and ruined Choi’s extraction procedure has since transformed into the heaving figure of a wolf, drooling maw and yellowed, vicious teeth. He mentally adjusts his stance: a contaminated individual, likely from the security team, if their intel on the seedy company was anything to go by.

The wolf-man moves, and the following happens in quick succession:

Choi braces for impact, wary of the speed at which the other was approaching—an impact that never comes because Soleum grips the man’s paw. Choi blinks, he could have sworn the other was across the room a mere second ago.

You’re wrong.

Its smoke, which seems to leak and flow from its ribcage without abandon or restraint, forms into hangeul before his very eyes. The entire room stills as if the slightest breath would blow the smoke away.

“Wrong?”

I am human.

Choi stares blankly, unsure how to point out to the other that human beings did not have glowing eyes, or antlers attached to their skull. The smoke pulsates for emphasis.

“You’re human.” He laughs despite the situation. “And tell me how that is.”

This is a suit.

“A suit, right...” Choi steps closer, ignoring the way the sergeant tenses—he’s still being held back by the creature anyway. “One without a zipper? Or buttons?”

It flinches, as if struck.

Issue right now. Can’t get out.

Choi mumbles under his breath, “Mighty convenient.”

“Soleum…” Jay speaks slowly, chewing his words before releasing them. “Does not lie.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. The transformation in Choi’s face is ugly, raw. A sentence uttered and thrown in his face in disrespect, a summary of the past however long that he’s been here—only wholly incorrect.

Kim Soleum does not lie, and that’s why Choi is here after hours: following the Daydream spy into an abandoned laboratory housing a machine he’s only heard rumours of.

Jay…

The smoke is wobbly, and seeing it brings the slightest bit of satisfaction, though brief and fleeting. The nonverbal exchange between the two is a stark reminder how the man has been working with Daydream behind their backs.

“This person… Disaster Management Bureau…?” Jay seems to be talking about him, though its smoke moves to affirm it before Choi can get a word in edgewise.

“I don’t know what’s going on…” (Does Choi?) “But you two seem to know each other. How about… talking it out?”

Silence, at times, is a more generous answer than any pittance that could be granted. Soleum, of course, seems to be physically incapable of speaking out and voicing an answer in compliance or otherwise, but he doesn’t immediately control the smoke surrounding him in a meaningful manner either. Choi’s silence is similarly loaded.

Eventually—earlier than he himself would be ready to answer Jay’s question, whether they’re capable of moving past this—the words appear before his eyes. This way of communication is disorienting—numbing, even. As if in displacing his words, ‘Soleum’ is also handing Choi a directive. Perhaps that’s why Choi finds himself nodding along despite himself, even as he’s unsure of the very ground that they stand on.

…Yes. Taxi.

“While you look like that?” Choi questions, wondering if Soleum (under the benefit of the doubt)—in betraying the bureau—has lost any former sense he had.

Disguise.

Soleum turns to Braun. His blood is still set at a low temper (he’s far too exhausted for a boil) but he has no other choice. He doesn’t want to waste his Dream Essence on a potion, and he suspects Braun knows this too.

[Of course, anything for my Good Friend! You must always look the part for the role.]

‘Anything, huh?’

Choi’s eyes widen in disbelief as Soleum turns back into his human self. Distantly, Soleum notes that he’s likely only furthering his status as non-human—if he could disguise himself perfectly now, could his entire stint at the bureau not also be a disguise? He shoves the thought aside, well aware that his worries now encompass much more than his coworker's perception of him.

And so Soleum takes them to a taxi.

And so the driver is Director Ho.

+++

Braun waits for the moment just after Soleum's negotiated himself and Choi a new lease on life. Then he drops the disguise he'd thrown up on his good friend's request.

This is the move of someone who is chiefly not a good friend, and ultimately an act Soleum should have expected (especially upon learning that the restriction of being a good friend no longer applied). He should have expected it, and yet... Fool him twice, shame on Soleum.

Which leaves them in this precarious position, with Soleum’s his inky, noxious smoke threatening to hotbox them all. Briefly, he wonders what they’d look like to the outside world as he watches Director Ho process what exactly is going on in front of him. He decides seconds later that it's nowhere near his biggest worry right now.

"When I lent you the suit," Ho drawls, "I didn't expect you to take such a liking to it."

...

Right. With the return of the security suit comes another loss of his voice.

This doesn't quite make sense to Soleum, but whether it makes sense or not, he remains mute. Instead, he ever so carefully shifts his head; left, right, a choreographed shake of the head.

Ho raises a brow, unimpressed with Soleum's response.

"It's not exactly couture."

Soleum sighs, a dark puff of air that nearly expands in Ho's face but misses, much to his relief. Instead Soleum bears witness to the multitude of emotions that flicker across Ho’s face.

"That suit..." Ho squints. "Surely you're not wearing it because you still want to?"

Soleum shakes his head. There's no logical reason for why he refuses to use his smoke to spell out words. But something in his near-vestigial intuition tells him to hold back for now.

Director Ho hums. The threatening, dominating aura from earlier vanishes without trace. Soleum wonders if this could be the same person—thoughts that plague his mind as he does anything in an effort not to turn around and make eye contact with a certain agent still sitting in the back-seat, wounded and waiting.

There exists perhaps no words in any human language to describe the mess stirring around in Soleum's heart as he sits there in that taxi, making deals to protect this lingering attachment.

"I take it that you've found yourself unable to get out?" Ho leans his head onto the steering wheel, still holding eye contact with the glowing pits where Soleum's eyes used to be. "Now, how did you get yourself into a predicament like that?"

The slight glimmer in Ho’s eyes, as if he's in on a joke that Soleum is the punchline of, tells Soleum that he definitely knows the answer to his own question, and is asking only to serve his own sick sense of amusement. Soleum, of course, remains silent as Ho continues chattering. He thinks he can see a flicker of movement from Jay, but nothing further happens; Jay must’ve weighed the consequences of interfering.

"Hmmm... I wonder, should we just keep you like this? It's quite the charming look, if I do say so myself." His mild smirk is infuriating; Soleum finds himself glowering at it while clenching his fist. Choi moves then, mouth opening in response, though he’s stopped by Jay’s hand around his wrist—a silent refusal.

In the end, Choi remains silent, but Soleum can read the words on his face clear as day: Don't bullshit.

He wonders what the agent thinks now that Ho's all but confirmed his earlier words at the lab to be the truth, and if that has any weight at all on Choi's scale.

Soleum releases a deeper plume of smoke, though that makes him feel like a horse chuffing, refusing to be led back into the stables.

Ho sighs. "You're not being very responsive, Soleum." He straightens back up into his seat as he continues, "I suppose we have no other choice then, yes?"

...! Yes, now change Soleum back! Surely if he’s the owner of the suit, then he has the power to take it back, or perhaps free Soleum through some other means. Instead, Director Ho merely snaps his fingers, smiling as a Darkness Exploration manual of decent size, maybe a couple hundred words thick, manifests between the gap in between his fingers.

He waves the book around in the air for a bit before dropping it onto Soleum's lap for his own perusal. Soleum's focus shifts to read the title of the manual, distantly realizing Ho intends for him to solve this problem of his own accord. Though he understands that it is ultimately something he needs to solve on his own , he can't help the bitterness rising at the back of his throat. Jay can't very well take extended time off from Daydream in order to help Soleum sort out his sordid affairs, and neither can the Lizard Chief, who is the only other person from Daydream he could possibly request help from. Agent Choi wants nothing to do with him, he’s certain;  and maybe Agent Bronze is soon to follow.

As for Braun...

Soleum really doesn't want to talk about Braun. He can't help feeling wronged despite himself, or the distasteful sense of betrayal. Still, it doesn't matter whether Soleum wants to venture into the originating Darkness on his own, he'll have to. Maybe he could threaten Baek Saheon somehow... No, ignoring the mess of his current appearance, considering he could possibly seek Braun's help for this one small thing, there’s the whole business of keeping up an act in front of the man, and on top of that watching his own back.

He finally accepts the fact, and reads the title of the manual in front of him for a second time, withholding a deep sigh all the while.

Qterw-B-23 (DECOMISSIONED) : Cosmic Forge

"Curious, aren't you?" Ho smiles. "I suppose you'll just have to go there and find out, hmm?"

Soleum does not speak, even as his smoke wavers and thins. He’d never realized how hard it was to express his thoughts in a manner other than words, how much he relied day-to-day on the simple fact that he could speak and be heard. It’s unsettling, and also uncomfortable. Soleum feels a sense of unease as Director Ho eventually exits the taxi.

Wordlessly, he leaves the taxi as well, shuffling in a near-unmoving pace before reaching the trunk and pulling out a first-aid kit. He shuffles back to the backseat of the car to help Agent Choi dress his wound, and even manages to stay unfazed when the other flinches away the slightest bit.

Right, when he looks like this...

Agent Choi waits until after he's almost fully wrapped the gashes from Director Ho's restrictions to speak.

"You..." Soleum twitches and turns to face him. "What are your plans?"

Visiting the forge and freeing himself from the confines of the Director's mysterious loaned suit, namely. Soleum knows that Choi knows this, and more so, that Choi cares more for how he answers, rather than what he answers.

He knows Jay, too, is waiting for this answer.

Not relevant to you, is the phrase he decides on, certain he would be able to cut off the tie right there and then. After all that Choi's seen and heard today, how could he possibly want anything at all to do with Soleum—

"Like hell it isn't."

His head snaps up.

"You..." Choi runs a frustrated hand through his hair and Soleum's reminded once again that none of them have had the time to sit down and process the events of the past few hours. Ever since Jay had dragged that mad scientist—Kwak Jaekang—into the laboratory, it had been gut punch after gut punch.

Director is dangerous.

He needs to get it through the agent’s stubborn, thick skull that under no circumstances should he do something like attempting to remove the binding placed on him, or, god forbid, following Soleum to the forge. He shifts, wishing not for the first time he had his original body so that he could hide the thick manual in his arm. Soleum couldn’t put it past the agent to take the guide, or otherwise procure the information that should absolutely not be in his hands.

Could he rely on their obligation to serve civilians above all, or would they prioritize the life of an agent, as they had done before?

“I can help.”

Soleum couldn’t parse the expression on the agent’s face; he wanted to laugh at it, though. Help him? Help Soleum steal classified government documents, or help him free himself from the security suit? Or… 

When he doesn’t answer, Choi speaks again. He asks about the director, about Soleum, about everything.

Gear in trunk.

And Soleum cuts it off there. He can tell that Agent Choi wants to continue the conversation further, pull his answers apart piece by piece and discover exactly who’s behind the man known as ‘Agent Grapes,’ but he’s also in a state of emotional disarray. Whatever resolution Choi’s made as Soleum leaves the taxi with the sergeant is of little relevance to him.

Perhaps since Soleum had made it obvious that he wouldn’t accept help, Jay doesn’t offer. Though he does tell Soleum to find him, if it gets to be too much. How he would be doing that from outer space, Soleum doesn’t know, though if he could get some sort of communication device through Lizard Chief… Though that would introduce its own set of trials and tribulations.

“Are you okay?”

Soleum doesn’t know.

He sends Jay off anyway.

It’s just Soleum and Braun then, almost reminiscent of his early days at Daydream. It’s similar, sure, but the Braun in his pocket is not the Good Friend like before, even as he makes a familiar comment on being excited for what Soleum would show him next.

He might have Braun with him, but Soleum feels wholly alone as he makes his way to his hotel room, flickering in and out of vision like a ghoul roaming the streets. 

+++

Soleum detects the presence of an agent on his tail almost immediately after leaving the hotel the next morning, having spent the night formulating plans and preparing for the journey that lay ahead. That, and… responding to Braun in a disinterested, cold manner. If the supernatural entity has noticed that something is up with him, it has yet to comment.

He wonders if he should call Agent Choi out now and get this whole situation over with, or allow him to follow Soleum to the Space Embassy and deal with the fallout there. Of course, the smarter course of action would be to lose Choi, but then again… Having someone to accompany him out into the unknown didn’t seem so bad, especially with the wide breadth of space-related phenomena detailed in the DER, which could get downright terrifying. There’s a reason horror movies like Alien and A Space Odyssey were such hits, praised and lauded even decades after their debut.

Hours of sleepless, anxious pacing have worn down Soleum’s spirit of any previous conviction. He decides to allow Choi to follow him, not even batting an eye when the man falls into step with him at the door of the seemingly innocuous building.

“What’s your plan?” Choi asks once again, a complicated expression on his face. “Surely you’re not planning on entering the Disaster alone?”

Soleum does not answer, despite currently wearing a form in which he can speak.

[This agent again? His involvement in the last arc was entertaining, I will admit, but it seems a little early for re-entry into the narrative.]

Soleum, once again, does not answer, deigning instead to press open the door to the building, as detailed in the beginning of the guide. Alabaster floors and gold embellishments scattered across the decor in the establishment clue Soleum into how expensive merely breathing the air in the building seems to be. He wonders, briefly, if the… entities running this store are aliens he hasn’t seen before, if they were friendly, and so on.

There’s a heady rush of relief upon realizing the man at the front desk is of the kind that Lee Jaheon is, and with a glance over at Agent Choi, he realizes that here too, the lizard head isn’t visible. Soleum clears his throat, attracting the attention of the worker, though minimal.

“I’d like to…” He flushes a bit at the embarrassing wording, but he didn’t dare step outside the boundaries of the entry method outlined in the manual, at least not yet. “I’d like to book a trip to the Cosmic Forge, business class, no amenities required.”

The lizard blinks at him, staying silent until Soleum tacks on: “The route through the purple galaxy, and avoiding wormholes.”

That does it. “Do you have a membership with the Mall?”

Soleum nods, pulling out the card he had been given earlier, and handing it over. “You are a VIP member. We will offer you a discounted rate of 300,000,000 won.”

Although the way Agent Choi narrows his eyes at the price tells Soleum he hadn’t entirely expected it,  he seems to take it in stride, likely already arranging the logistics and noting the paperwork he’d have to fill in order to pay for one ticket himself. The lizard seems to be ready to continue, and process the payment, but it’s then that Choi inserts himself.

“I’d like the same,” he requests with a close-eyed smile. Which drops mere moments later.

“That will not be possible.”

Before the conversation can continue to the point where Choi would get frustrated with the species’ tendency to provide short, uninformative answers, Soleum takes pity on him and jumps in, asking, “Why is this trip possible for me and not Choi?”

The lizard’s cool, unblinking gaze flickers back to Soleum. “We do not provide trips for humans.” Soleum flinches, as if slapped. He knows the suit has taken over his identity, and therefore likely restricted his status in a manner similar to how contamination was able to prevent the use of dream essence collectors.

"But you're providing a trip for me." Soleum senses that his sentence is too vague right away and jumps in again with an addendum. "I mean, why are you allowing me to purchase a ticket?"

"You are not human."

Choi looks uncomfortable; Soleum wants to ask him why. Instead, he clenches his jaw from behind the mask, and acquiesces only to freeze mere moments later. The last time he had dealt with the collective, he managed to pay with an item. The thing is, without access to his wrist, Soleum lacks access to an item that can pay the lizard back. (Although it’s not given that they'd allow him to trade for value in the first place; perhaps the last time was a one-off scenario.)

He shuffles around on his feet, searching for an immediate solution to the problem, if there even is one. Agent Choi still hasn’t left, a keen gaze on Soleum as he shifted from foot to foot. He even considers, briefly, whether the guise Braun placed on him would allow him to reach through the suit, though he immediately squashes the notion. The only thing active at the moment is an illusion visible to the average human interacting with him—it should be doing nothing to his actual physical state.

Just as he's about to ask the front-desk worker to wait as he takes a trip back to his house in order to gather the necessary funds, Agent Choi steps in.

"The bill is 300,000,000 won, you said?" he questions, though he pulls out his wallet without waiting for a reply. Soleum opens his mouth, then closes it again. Then, a few moments later, opens it.

"Senior..."

"The bureau will cover it."

Soleum looks away. "This is hardly a work related matter."

"It's for the health and wellbeing of an agent, isn't it?" Choi still considers him an agent? "It's a bureau expense, in that case."

Soleum, though he wants to give the man an adequate reply, is not sure that there exists words to do so.

He remains silent as Agent Choi pays for the ticket, not sure how he has the funds to do so on hand, but deciding that ignorance is better for his own mental health. After all, the less he involves himself with his coworkers' states of affairs, the less trouble Soleum involves himself in. It's with this mindset that Soleum prevents himself from thinking too hard about how exactly Agent Choi would report this situation to his supervisors, what he would write in the report (if he filled one out), and how he would go about securing an entry method to the now decommissioned Darkness, which Soleum felt he was unfortunately very likely to attempt.

Choi himself has not much else to say as the lizard continues with the processing of Soleum's ticket for his trip; he's asked for what luggage he'd like to bring along (one pink plush rabbit), and an introduction to the amenities available while ‘in air.’ Soleum previously hoped, through common movie convention, that his trip would occur in next to no time at all—given that the sooner Soleum reached space, the sooner he'd reach Earth once again. Except he's informed that the journey to the forge itself takes 7 days, even travelling faster than the speed of light. Or rather, however long the trip takes, Soleum's perception of it will be 7 days. 

He withholds a wince, realizing all of that time will be spent next to Braun. Alone. Together. Alone, together. 

Soleum almost wishes that he’d been forced to clock into work the next day instead, because at least then he'd have a convenient reason to be busy, and not have the time to pay attention to the entity. In almost no time at all, it seems, Soleum has been checked in, and is practically ready for his flight. He's quite pleased to see that the ship’s absurd price is reflected in its quality, much like the inside of a private jet. He's told where the food is (though it's not like Soleum can have any), and where the exploration guide amenities (oxygen tanks, and the like) have been placed for his use.

Choi says maybe ten words throughout the process, only speaking properly when Soleum is quite literally seconds from boarding and possibly never seeing him again.

“You do recall,” Choi starts, slowly, “what the bureau’s policy on uninformed leave is, right? And their policy on the incorrect use of resources, too?”

“I recall.”

“And you know that failure to report back within a month, at the latest, will be taken as uninformed leave?”

“I understand.”

He supposes it’s Agent Choi’s way of telling him to make it back alive, or rather, safe. He doesn’t need to be told twice; Soleum has every intention of making it out of this security suit, and making it back home as well.

+++

The ship whirs with an automaton hum as Soleum settles in. A few minutes pass by before he realizes they’re travelling at a speed they could not possibly be cruising with in shared airspace. Sure enough, when Soleum uses the remote control to remove the shutters, they pull away and reveal the presence of a hundred dazzling stars. They seem both within his reach and entirely out of it. It’s the telltale huff of a dim cloud that clues Soleum in that Braun has removed his disguise.

Soleum chooses to sit up from the seat that the aliens had strapped him into, now that they’ve reached a stable velocity, to examine the vessel they’d enclosed him in. He runs a hand over the gargantuan metallic hull, but he cannot feel the cool, smooth texture of the wall through his gloves.

[My, my, friend, I do believe they’ve given us a limited amount of oxygen. While I’m certain you’d do better than the Houdini gentlemen, it is only out of concern for your livelihood that I speak up at this point in time.]

Soleum is certain his eye would twitch if it had the capacity. He’s once again overcome with a sense of being aggrieved, though not for any sensible reason.

‘Yeah. I know.’

Braun doesn’t respond. When Soleum turns back towards him, the plush exterior remains unchanged.

Well, of course it is. The good friend doll, in and of itself, is not Braun, just a mere extension of the talk show host from wherever he is at the moment.

Soleum inhales, blinking once, twice. It’s going to be a long 7 days.

He spends the first day adjusting to the blinding lights that line the spacecraft. No matter how hard he tries, he just can’t seem to make contact (or even spot, for that matter) a light switch. Soleum is fairly certain the same alien, with their lovely sense of aesthetics, must have been in charge of  all visual matters within the collective. A garish rotation of lights, starting somewhere on the wrong end of fuschia and ending off with neon green, flash periodically. He supposes the only saving grace is that the lizard had the good sense to slow the transition between each colour—Soleum doesn’t know how long he’d last in the poor imitation of a rave otherwise.

He sits down solemnly in the seat provided by the agency, though he suspects it may have been solely for take-off considering the otherwise comfortable accommodations provided to him. The double bed bolted down in the corner opposing Soleum remains untouched—save for the mild indent of a stuffed rabbit; the first thing he had done had been shuck Braun off in that corner in a show of irritation disguised as care.

For all of twenty minutes he sits and waits  before the absolute silence drives him up the wall. It doesn’t help that Braun has miraculously decided it would be the perfect time to shut himself up, depriving Soleum the opportunity to get increasingly annoyed with whatever he says. With no cell signal, he has nothing to do beyond scouring through the same DER entries for the nth time. He had briefly questioned this—after all, wouldn’t there be satellites in space?—before the late realization that they had likely sped by them within the first few minutes of the journey finally hit.

Soleum decides, after a third search nets zero lightswitches or other sources of entertainment, that it is time to speak to Braun after all.

…

Except he can’t be the one to break first, can he?

So Soleum starts planning their foray into the forge instead: what they might encounter, and how he might combat it. This is made especially difficult by the vaguely worded entries for the forge. A Darkness so mild it hadn’t even received satirical entries making fun of it. All Soleum was able to learn from these was the existence of a sphinx-like entity residing at the heart of the forge—wherein you had to answer its question and upon the inevitable failure to do so, you would be petrified into stone.

It is, in theory, a classic setting—prime setup and backdrop for many a scary story. The issue there, as it turned out, was that the author had written themselves into a hole. The premise and riddle presented had, by their own admission, no answer.

Daydream had realized this soon enough, which led into the speedy decommission of the Darkness, given that the only survivors of the forge were beings upon whom the petrification had no effect—non-humans. They acquiesced any self–proclaimed authority to the space shopping mall soon after the realization that the forge was unprofitable as a business venture came to light. The space mall did not care about this arbitrary grant of ownership, and continued to use the Darkness as they had before: answer the riddle, get hit with a petrification beam, and use the forge.

Soleum’s problem lies in the fact that he is not there to forge, but to destroy. It is impossible to determine purely through a reading of the (minimal) DER entries, what this will entail. But his mind is a grim place, in all that it manages to imagine.

The first day nears its end like that, a chasm of silence as Soleum shifts on the chair, wondering if it’s been 24 hours yet. Braun speaks up, then, and he almost cries in relief at the ‘sound.’

[Is it not time for you to head to bed, Mr. Roe Deer?]

It is, Soleum spells out, subconsciously switching from telepathic communication to the smoke, but I want lights off.

And just like that, they go out. Soleum blinks. Was it—

Lights on, he tries, and is almost immediately flash-banged by the wannabe disco party. Then, more regretfully: lights off.

[Would you look at that! How typical of their kind not to provide a decent set of instructions. You must leave a bad review on this trip, I do insist.]

Can Braun say that? It’s not as if anyone is around them to hear, but Soleum has the distinct impression that his ‘Good Friend’s’ little rant just now might constitute hate speech under some existing intergalactic law. In the first place, does Braun recognize them as the same kind of alien Jaheon is, and furthermore—is he giving up the guise that he ever saw Jaheon’s human face in the first place?

There’s so much to say, and yet, Soleum does not say anything at all, because it means engaging in serious discussion with the plush rabbit.

He grunts, or does the equivalent thought of one: with the lights off, Braun is no longer able to see what he spells out. Soleum slumps into the chair, lit only by the faint glow of his lantern, and uncaring of the several odd angles and outlines he now contains. It worries him, a little, that in the suit not only is there the presence of more (terrifying extrusions of bone—antlers), there's also the presence of less. This spawns its own harrowing set of realizations, but Soleum ultimately reaches the verdict that despite how he is shaped now, all will be well once again once he makes it out of the suit.

So, no, the light from the lantern does not freak him out (that much, anymore). Even if it comes from a lantern hooked onto his ribs from the inside. Even if that lantern highlights their darkness, as if covered in pitch. Soleum takes special care to ensure his antlers don’t nudge Braun off the pillow as he lays beside the stuffed animal and closes his eyes; with them, the beacons of light in his sockets shut off as  well.

He lays on the bed next to Braun, but he does not sleep.

And like that the second day comes around. By the time Soleum realizes, perhaps by the distinct ache present in his side, that several hours have gone by—they’re passing by another solar system. In this one, cosmic trails float by the transparent hub window that allows him to see the surrounding space. Like this, with the array of brightly coloured ephemera, Soleum can almost pretend it’s the sky there in front of him.

The fifth day brings the appearance of stars he had only read about in passing—red dwarfs and so on. He sees planets like Jupiter, with a hundred satellite moons. Soleum sees all he’s ever heard of, and more. More than once, Soleum’s hand twitches towards Braun, itching to ask, ‘Hey, isn’t this amazing?’ And also, ‘Hey, isn’t this downright terrifying?’ Who knows if the A-grade entity would agree to either evaluation, though. 

Eventually, as far as Soleum can tell with his decreasing sanity and increasing sleep-deprivation induced hilarity, it’s the sixth day—and he still hasn’t had a conversation with Braun. But with waning rest comes waning inhibitions, and before Soleum can reel the words back in, he says it.

Despite not speaking up verbally, he directs his thoughts.

‘Why did you do it?’

[Hm? Is there something my good friend wants to know? Please, do ask away!]

‘The glass prison—’

It feels a little pointless, to be asking so plainly like this after six days of pondering more or less on when exactly Soleum had begun expecting the plush rabbit to act as a friend to him.

‘When you didn’t help me out when Agent Choi was about to capture me?’

[While I value the livelihood of my friend, you see, at the time, it could not have been the best choice—]

Soleum interrupts him. He’s gone absolutely insane, interrupting a Darkness.

‘It isn’t as important as entertainment.’

[...]

[Well, to an entertainer, there’s nothing more important. But, aren’t you forgetting? Even Roe Deer promised… You said you’d entertain me.]

So it’s like that—Soleum leans back against the pillow. His gaze illuminates the soft pink fur of the toy; he had deigned to turn the light on only a few times after learning how to operate their controls, both in the interest of conserving energy and also reducing the time spent with the affront to vision as possible. The fact that his eyes now function as a pair of low-grade car headlights also helps, of course, as there’s next to no reason for Soleum to be fumbling in the dark now. Not that he had bothered moving out of the bed much for a cursory tour, anyways. One that he had distinctly avoided taking Braun on.

Soleum sighs. ‘Yeah, it’s true.’ Then, even though he doesn’t have to say it: ‘I just realized I had been a little mistaken.’

It’s more than a little predictable, the excited quality he can hear the show-host’s voice take on, as well as the way the doll almost seems to twitch in front of him.

[Mistaken? By all means, I’m more than happy to clear up any misunderstandings, could you elaborate?]

‘I had thought…’

He stops there. It’s just not the right way to start the sentence off. He doesn’t want to approach Braun with the same bureaucracy required when he needs, rather, needed to send out a firm e-mail, or otherwise speak in a corporate manner.

‘I assumed you’d consider me before the enjoyment of the show, I guess.’

Even as he thinks the words they sound ridiculous in the face of all that he’s internalized after arriving in this world where Darkness is a fact of life. He’d been expecting Braun to act against his nature.

[But you’re not looking at this the right way!] Braun exclaims emphatically, as if in doing so he could forcibly revert their bond back to the way it had been before. Before even the Talk Show, perhaps. [I know Mr. Roe Deer was hurt when I refused to help a few days ago, but I only wanted to provide the best help possible!]

…

What?

The host’s voice dips lower, as if trying to soothe him over with dulcet tones.

[You see, if I had just hid you then, you would have vanished in the middle of the confrontation! And then the spy arc you had invested all that effort into would be cut off without a satisfying conclusion, just like that…]

Soleum doesn’t know how to begin to respond to that.

[You wouldn’t want that, would you, Mr. Roe Deer?]

He glances outside the large glass window at the empty pilot’s seat—though it’s a shame the shifting of the beams immediately betrays his line of sight—to the stars, still glimmering as they were before. It’s only Braun and him out here, although wherever the Darkness lies has to be miles and miles away from where they are currently. Maybe it’s reckless, maybe it’s stupid.

‘Don’t be angry because it’s fun.’

Braun is silent.

‘That’s what it sounds like you’re saying.’

He regrets it almost immediately, especially considering he’ll likely need all the help he can get out here, but at the same time… The amount of catharsis airing at least that much out is immeasurable. At telling the host that regardless of reasonability and whether it was rational to do so, Soleum felt betrayed, he expected more of Braun.

‘It’s okay if you feel that way.’

It’s time for Soleum to stop expecting anything at all from the other in matters such as this one. The moment he stops doing that, he can get rid of these similarly expansive feelings that don’t do anything for his survival except hinder it. He’s glad to halt the conversation there, but it seems the same isn’t exactly the case for Braun.

[You don’t trust me?]

It’s a funny question. He hears Braun muttering, as if an aside.

[I suppose fights are the markers of intimacy, after all it is only with your best friends you’re able to share these kinds of feelings.]

The talk-show host has a remarkable ability to put a positive spin on Soleum’s words. But really he had expected the other to disagree more, or rather, comment on the apparent mistrust; in any other scenario he likely would have, but if he wasn’t right now—

‘... Is there something else?’

[We can’t make amends like this can we, friend? On this garish, disgusting ship, which is entirely too unsightly as a backdrop for our heartfelt ruminations and discussions.]

It makes enough sense. It wasn’t the only reason, though.

[I think Mr. Roe Deer has also realized by now.]

They had entered a meteor field, requiring the slightest bit of manual intervention on Soleum’s part. Although the aliens fitted the ship with an advanced object detection system, allowing the autosteer function to be optimized far beyond the autonomous vehicles present on Earth, there is still the chance of failure.

Despite the requirement to stay alert and ensure they don’t crash into a meteor—stranding the two of them in the middle of nowhere—something in Soleum’s chest, that had been previously wound tight to the point of snapping, loosens.

On the seventh day, with the otherwise dim interior lit by the blaze of the forge lying just ahead—though it remains inactive—Soleum rests.

+++

When Soleum steps off the spaceship, there is silence. It turns out that the developments to the Hubble telescope Soleum had read about in the papers were inconsequential. There is no comparison to seeing stars with your own eyes. Soleum almost feels ashamed for the scientists who have tried.

The planet he’s landed on resembles many of Earth’s deserts and canyons, the floor being lined in shades of russet and sepia. Soleum’s heart, which had until now started to surge with hope and enticement, stills. All around him, as far out as he can see, is nothing but sand. Kilometers of burnt brown until he nearly grows sick of the colour.

[It seems we’re in for quite the ride!]

Soleum takes a few steps forward, then halts. Moving now without a plan would do him no good, especially considering it might instead lead to him losing the ship. But using the land roaming mode to cruise is also a no-go, given that it might leave him with no fuel to return. Whilst the shopping mall had autoprogrammed a return trip, and included the fuel, any erroneous use of the spaceship was on him and would require reimbursement (if he wasn’t already dead). It was on the waiver.

He hesitates only a moment before answering Braun.

‘Yes, we’ll need to figure out a plan before we make any moves.’

[I like the way you think! Your good friend is here at your service, as always!]

Fuel waste is out of the question, but still, Soleum figures that he’ll have to at least make the sacrifice of turning the ship on for as long as it would take to perform any scans that the technology came equipped with.

He steps back in after the latch releases with a cool hisssss—and really, one would think the technologically advanced Lizards were past the point of using pneumatics, but perhaps they had added the noise in purely for his comfort.

When Soleum turns the system on, a variety of buttons appear, all seemingly available for his use. There looks to be sonar, radar, and lidar, along with a number of other options that remain undiscernible as far as Soleum’s knowledge extends.

‘Which one do you think we should use, Braun?’

[What is it that you wish to find out, Mr. Roe Deer?]

Soleum hums, or more accurately, huffs. He’d like to see if there’s truly nothing around them, it’s an illusion he has to dispel, or some other supernatural factor to that extent. Though it had been his intent, Soleum is still shocked to see real results when he presses one of the buttons at random.

The technology is advanced enough, thankfully, that the radar penetrates to the ground and reveals a complex system of caves and tunnels, lying right beneath their feet. It resembles an ant farm, if only in the most basic structure. Soleum feels a rush of exhilaration; it’s as if he’s gazing into a pile of sparkling gold laying right there for him to take. The entrance to the tunnels lies nearby under what looks, through the scan, to be a larger rock—an issue to solve, yes, but not one nearly as big as the one he had been fixing to face mere moments earlier.

He picks Braun back up from the console where he had placed him for the duration of operating the controls and tucks the rabbit in the hollow of his chest, moving the lantern from inside out for possible necessity. It’s mildly uncomfortable, which is not something he’d like to linger on, but it is the only space available. Like this, he can pin Braun, and tuck him in at the root of his spine where the ribs are closer together.

Together, they venture back outside, this time to the rock. Soleum now feels the slightest bit more comfortable, what with Braun’s chatty stream of commentary steadily being flown into his brain. The problem of getting through to the entrance through the rock turns out to not be one at all, as the heaving structure gives way at the slightest exertion of pressure from Soleum himself.

Kkrrrrk.

The stone lets out an ungainly shriek that has Soleum wincing, and Braun exclaiming, as it is pushed aside to reveal the existence of a hole, shaped similarly to a manhole, right underneath. He’s struck by the vision of an alley, the sharp scent of petrichor; the memory of encountering Agent Choi on a night like this rises to his head, unbidden.

What Soleum finds underneath, this time, are not arms in the walls, but entire bodies. They are also not in the wall, and are instead stone monuments littered in the cave in front of him. It’s distinctly uncomfortable. 

As he ventures further, he notes the existence of plaques under each statue. He also encounters humanoids that are made of, not stone, but rusty metal and loose limbs. Whatever purpose they used to serve, they either no longer perform such a function, or they’re capable of doing so even with unoiled hinges and creaking joints.

And of course, alongside the humanoid figures, there are also beastlike machines. Soleum falls flat on his ass the first time he runs into one, only to realize belatedly that it’s no longer functional. He huffs a sigh of relief, head dropping to his knee in mild embarrassment. It doesn’t help that Braun applauds his performance.

The lantern attached at Soleum’s hip, which had previously dimmed in its supernaturally golden hue, sputtered and pulsed wildly, as if it couldn’t decide between going out entirely and escaping the confines of the glass chamber. He grasps the ring bolstering the mechanism to his side, unlatching the light source and lifting it out in the air in front of him for inspection. After all, anything that remotely resembles a clue would be essential in getting him out of there.