“So this is the place, huh…?”

“It’s… really dark, isn’t it…?” Austin observed uneasily, passing Spike a quick glance before looking over the ancient Aldredian outpost standing before them. Thanks to Kaoné’s quick work, the outpost and its immediate surroundings were now lit by a number of floodlights — but even with the buildings being lit, the environment around them still fell into an eerie pitch blackness. Nonetheless, everyone had now disembarked from Pallan’s airship, and now gathered in front of the nearest building; only Luke and Liask were absent, remaining quarantined aboard the Archoné’s ship until the outpost could be investigated.

“It’s… pretty chilly, too…” Conrad remarked while shivering.

“A complete lack of sunlight will do that, I suppose…” Twy muttered.

“But never fear, because I’m here!” Sky declared, readily lighting a flame in each of her hands. “If you need heat, just gather ‘round!”

Obra passed Sky an impatient glance as Twy, Conrad, and Kestrel gathered around her flames. He shook his head and remarked, “we don’t have the time to just be standin’ around. What are we waitin’ for?”

“Have patience,” Pallan replied. “Captain Luke Travis and Liask Rakos are in dire straits, that is true. But that is no reason to be rushing headlong into potential danger.”

“Danger…?” Kaoné echoed uneasily as Spike began fabricating sets of protective energy shields for everyone to wear. “But haven’t you been coming here periodically over the past ten years? What danger is left?”

“I didn’t know that we’d need to fight anything…” Austin remarked uneasily.

“Do note that I said potential danger,” Pallan reiterated, turning to address the rest of the group. “It is true that I have periodically visited this place over the past decade. However, I’ve only been able to access one of the three buildings — this one here.” He stopped to gesture at the blackish-silver building that they all stood in front of. “The others are locked down and protected by shielding.”

“If it’s just energy shielding…” Phoenix mused, her gaze drifting to Kaoné. “…Well, can’t you just disable the shields, then?”

“In general, I could…” Kaoné said, “but without knowing what’s behind those shields, or why they’re still up, I don’t think it would be safe for me to do so.”

Pallan nodded. “That was my thinking, as well.”

“Wait, are you sayin’ it was pointless to come here?!” Obra exclaimed incredulously.

“Then why the hell are we here?” Pierce questioned impatiently. “I thought the entire point of coming here was to check out the stuff that you’ve missed!”

“I can’t say that I appreciate being jerked around, like this,” Rebehka added. “Though, getting access to even part of the outpost is better than nothing, I suppose…”

Archoné Culana responded with a slow shake of his head. “In your haste to aid your friends,” he remarked, “you are making unfounded assumptions. I would not have brought you all here if I thought there was nothing more to learn.”

“What is there, then?” Gavon asked.

Pallan turned around, gesturing for the group to follow him as he stepped up to the entrance into the nearby building. After inputting a quick code into a small keypad, the door shot open, revealing dimly-lit halls inside. “While it is true that the other buildings are locked down,” he continued as he led the group into the building, “the lock in question is quite conspicuous. And most importantly, if the Oraculm is right…” He paused just long enough to look back at the Earthian students. “…Then the Keys should be able to open the way.”

“Seriously…?” Obra turned to look at the Keys incredulously. “These outsiders?”

“I guess we don’t have much other reason to be here, huh,” Conrad remarked.

“Maybe not you, but I’d be here for Liask, regardless,” Pierce insisted.

“And we’re here for Luke,” Austin quickly added. “We aren’t just here because Pallan wants us here!”

“Wh-what kind of, um, lock are we… talking about?” Kirstin questioned uneasily, turning back to Pallan. “I-is it… a-a Raen lock…?”

“I was wondering the same,” Saito said as Pallan led the group down a corridor and then down another. The corridors were fairly short, however, and the group soon found themselves in a small lobby-like area, with two large doors — not unlike a garage — on the left and right walls, leading into the corridors that connected the center building with the other two in the outpost. And plastered conspicuously over both doors was a large, blue-tinted insignia of a longsword held vertically, on top of a thick black ring. “Yep…” Saito remarked as he looked up at the insignia. “…There it is.”

“Do you recognize this symbol?” Kaoné questioned.

“We’ve run into it a handful of times over the past half-year or so,” the Colonel explained. “It seems to be the insignia of a noble or royal family in the Aldredas Empire… right, MacTavish?”

The Researcher nodded. “Mmhmm. I-it seems to, um, i-indicate the presence of, um… ‘Raen Technology’. B-basically it, um, i-is gene-locked to de-descendants of, um, an old Aldredian Emperor.”

“Raen Technology…” Gavon echoed contemplatively. “…I can’t say I’ve ever heard of that, before.”

“It’s what the Drakkars called the tech,” Saito said. “And since they were actually around to face the Aldredas, I assume they know what they’re talking about. At least, a little bit.” He then sighed as he looked up at the door. “This presents a problem, though…”

“I take it you’re talking about this ‘gene lock’ mechanism?” Rebehka questioned as she stepped up to one of the doors to inspect it up close.

“That’s right,” Saito replied. “One of the Eximius Vir — specifically, Lieutenant Mote Emerson — seems to have the gene that unlocks this stuff. So if we had brought him with us, then opening these doors would be easy. But without him…”

“One of the Eximius Vir, you say…” Pallan mused.

Phoenix planted her hands on her hips as she fixed the Archoné with an impatient stare. “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all. What are you hiding from us, now?”

The Archoné shook his head. “It’s nothing. The Oraculm simply never mentioned anything about gene-locked technology, or the possibility that these doors could be opened by someone other than the Keys.”

“Does that mean that we actually can’t open them…?” Austin questioned.

“I don’t even see how we’d open them,” Conrad pointed out while gesturing at one of the large doors. Aside from the large sword insignia, the door was practically featureless, with no knobs, keypads, or access mechanisms of any kind. As he spoke, however, Pierce wordlessly stepped up to the door opposite the one that Rebehka was inspecting. After a moment’s pause, Pierce extended his hand toward the door, placing his palm over part of the large insignia… at which point the entire insignia lit up brightly. The hissing sound of rushing air filled the room, and a second later, the door began to slowly retract into the ceiling.

“What the—?!” Phoenix questioned incredulously as Pierce backed away from the door. “What the hell did you do?”

“I just put my hand on the door,” Pierce retorted. “Everyone else was just standing around and talking, so I thought I’d try something.” He then looked doubtfully back at the opening door, and the dark hallway behind it. “…Though I’ll admit, I didn’t expect it to work.”

“Seriously…?” Hackett remarked in disbelief as Austin readily stepped up to the other door — and successfully opened it, just as Pierce had. “Does this mean that Mote isn’t the only one with the gene, after all…?”

“Or maybe this just has something to do with us being, um… Keys?” Twy suggested.

“There’s an easy way for us to check once we get back to Treséd,” Saito stated. “But for now, these doors are open.”

“True. And we don’t have much time,” Gavon affirmed. “I think we should split into a few groups. There’s two large buildings to search, after all.”

“But we mustn’t be careless,” Kaoné quickly added. “We don’t know why these buildings were sealed off. Maybe there’s important tech in here, or maybe there’s Nanocreature specimens — until we can be sure, everyone needs to be careful, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Obra replied dismissively, already approaching the door that Pierce had opened. “More importantly, we don’t got much time. So let’s get lookin’ already!”

“He has a point,” Saito remarked, watching as Obra and Pierce disappeared down the hallway. “Major, Researcher, the two of you are with me — we’ll check out the right side. Everyone else, best of luck. Hopefully, what we’re looking for is actually here…”

---

An Hour Later

“Well, MacTavish? Any luck?”

“U-um… j-just about…” the Researcher replied, her gaze focused on the small laptop resting in her lap as she typed away.

“Good…” Saito nodded absentmindedly, his own attention drifting across the small room he now stood in, featuring several consoles and what appeared to be server racks, all dimly lit by sparse lights in the ceiling.

“Seems like both of the buildings were meant to be data storage facilities…” Gavon mused, looking up at Saito, and then at Hackett. “The Archoné and Dean Tchiréon say that their groups found more computers over in the other building. The only difference seems to be that there’s several rooms with computer and lab equipment over there, but on this side, this room is the only computer room…”

“I think there’s an elevator shaft in the center of the building,” Kaoné reported right as she entered the room to join the group. “I just had a look around, and there seems to be a large, central shaft, with several doors leading into it.”

“What would be at the bottom…?” Hackett questioned.

“That’s impossible to say without investigating,” Kaoné replied. “But the doors didn’t have that Raen insignia on them, so I think we should be able to open them ourselves. That said, they didn’t open for me, and I’m not too keen on forcing them open. Who knows if I’ll accidentally break something valuable…”

“I-I think I can, um… do that…” MacTavish said, her eyes still focused on her laptop. “…There, um, d-doesn’t actually seem to be, uh, a-any security on these c-computers, so… I-I think I can just, um, look for an elevator, uh, c-control system…”

“No security, you say?” Gavon mused. “As in, no passwords, no encryption, or anything like that?”

“N-no…”

“I bet the Raen lock was meant to be the security,” Saito suggested. “It’s worked this way at a handful of the Aldredian outposts that we’ve discovered — as soon as we got past the lock, we had little trouble accessing the rest of the systems.”

“Still, to think that the Aldredas used gene-based locking mechanisms…” Kaoné commented. “And what’s more, you say that they specifically respond to a gene that was passed down from an Aldredian Emperor?”

“According to info that we found at an old outpost, yes,” Saito replied.

“Not very egalitarian, now, is it?” Gavon remarked with a smirk. “Now, I’ve never read too much into Aldredian culture, myself, but I can’t say I imagined them being into royalty and bloodlines…”

“I admit, I find it surprising, too…” Kaoné affirmed. “Granted, I haven’t read much about Aldredian culture, either, so it’s possible that the galactic archaeological community already knew all of this… but still, none of the present-day galactic governments use bloodlines to determine… well, anything. You still have things like Archonés here on Nimalia, of course, but most of them have limited power — and the Union itself has an elected Sidonté. So I suppose I just kind of assumed that the Aldredas would be the same…”

“Th-they used to be…” MacTavish said as she closed her laptop, unplugged it from the nearby console, and stood up. “B-but that Emperor, Rynisaren Raen… he replaced th-the government with, um, his own.”

“Did you unlock the elevators?” Saito questioned.

The Researcher nodded. “Um, y-yeah, I think…”

“Let’s get going, then,” the Colonel declared, leading the small group out of the room. Before long, they were standing in front of one of the doors that Kaoné had found — only this time, the locking mechanism recognized their presence. A moment later, a light appeared on the side of the door, slowly rising, as if indicating that an elevator carriage was on its way.

“Hmm…” Gavon mused, his hand on his chin as he glanced over at MacTavish while waiting for the elevator to arrive. “Going back to what you said earlier — you say that the Aldredas used to have a non-monarchic government, which was replaced by this usurper?”

“Um… yeah…” MacTavish responded. “I-I think it was, um, th-the Aldredian Federation… which was replaced by, um, th-the Raen Empire…”

“This Rynisaren Raen was clearly an important figure, then,” Kaoné remarked. “But why do these locks exist, that only respond to his genes?”

“W-well…” MacTavish muttered, momentarily distracted by the opening of the doors, heralding the arrival of the elevator. The group promptly moved in and Saito hit the button that seemed to indicate ‘bottom floor’; as he did, MacTavish continued, “accord-um, according to what we found… it’s p-partly just, um, e-elitism, I think…”

“I see…”

“I imagine there were at least some practical considerations,” Gavon pointed out. “The Aldredas were in perpetual conflict with the Drakkars, weren’t they? It stands to reason that they’d want a way to prevent the Drakkars from using their tech.”

“Yes, but this locking system doesn’t apply to all Aldredian tech,” Kaoné countered. “So there must be something else to it, right?”

“M-maybe…” MacTavish replied. “B-but… i-it wasn’t, um, clear, I think. Th-the info I found said, um, th-that Raen technology was i-introduced sp-specifically by, um, Rynisaren Raen, a-and was more advanced than anything else, um, th-that they had. I-it also said that Rynisaren was, uh, a Ch-Chaos Conduit, but, um… n-not much more…”

“That would explain where he got the power to install himself as Emperor, at least,” Gavon remarked.

“But being a Chaos Conduit doesn’t suddenly grant you access to advanced technology or intelligence,” Kaoné pointed out. “He must have gotten that tech from somewhere. And your information doesn’t say?”

MacTavish shook her head. “N-no… b-but it did, um, say that Al-Aldredian researchers were, um, t-trying to figure out how to, uh, make the tech m-more available to everyone to, um, f-fight the Nanocreatures… a-and that they were, um, t-trying to use something called… Priors? O-or ‘Memory of Chaos’?”

“Priors…?” Kaoné echoed, her gaze turning away in contemplation.

“Does that ring a bell?” Hackett questioned, just as the elevator slowed to a stop. A second later, the doors opened, revealing a massive, cavernous space that was lit just as well as the environment outside the outpost — which was to say, not at all.

“Hmm, well…” Kaoné began to respond to Hackett’s inquiry while simultaneously fabricating and passing out flashlights to everyone in the group. “I’ve worked with a Prior before, and seen Prior technology for myself. It’s incredibly advanced. If this ‘Raen tech’ is actually Prior technology, then perhaps that would explain things… maybe.” She then passed MacTavish a glance. “I have no idea what ‘Memory of Chaos’ could be referring to, though.”

“Can’t say that I’ve heard of that, either,” Gavon remarked.

“If only the Aldredas were less cryptic with all of their messages and reports…” Hackett grumbled.

“I don’t think it’s intentional,” Kaoné countered. “I mean, if you were to look at the databanks of any modern-day lab — they don’t store the entire foundation for their work. They assume that that information — that the context — is available elsewhere. And it is. I’m sure the same was true for the Aldredas, but because we don’t have access to whatever their form of the Relaynet was, we don’t know the context or background for their research.”

“I suppose…”

“But, speaking of old Raen technology…” Saito commented as his flashlight beam fell upon a peculiar machine standing in the middle of the cavernous room. It appeared to be a long tube or capsule of some sort, long enough for a grown adult to lay down inside, accompanied by an array of mechanical arms extending out of the ceiling above it. Altogether, the capsule looked remarkably like some manner of operating table, standing alone amidst a massive room with nothing else in it… and displayed prominently on the side of the capsule was the insignia of a blue longsword on top of a thick black circle.

“Damn…” Hackett scowled. “So we need to go back and get the recruits to even use this thing…”

“Well…” Gavon remarked, turning his flashlight up to look at the eight mechanical arms hanging down from the ceiling. He then looked down at the capsule, finding that the interior was flat and slightly cushioned, not unlike a bed. “…If there is a machine that can cure the infection, here… then this is probably it.”

“See what you can figure out, MacTavish,” Saito ordered; the Researcher promptly nodded and scurried over to the capsule, looking for any port to plug her laptop into. As she did, the Colonel turned back to the rest of the group — particularly Kaoné. “You say that you’ve seen ‘Prior technology’, before? Is ‘Prior’ a proper noun, here?”

“Sorry, yes,” Kaoné replied. “Priors are a whole thing… the short explanation is that they’re some kind of, um, non-physical sapient intelligences that are linked to the Chaos Ayas.”

“Right… and you think that Raen tech might actually be this… Prior tech?”

“Well, it’s just speculation,” Kaoné quickly corrected. “I didn’t get a chance to look closely at the Prior tech, so I wouldn’t be able to say for sure… it’s just an idea that came to mind, is all.”

“Would Prior technology be able to cure the infection?” Hackett questioned.

Kaoné cast a glance to the side, as if recalling a distant — and unsavory — memory. “…I don’t know,” she eventually said. “If it can… then it only works on relatively early stages of the infection. It can’t cure someone who’s fallen completely. …Either that… or we were lied to.”

“Lied to?” Gavon echoed incredulously. “By who?”

“And does this have anything to do with how Hero Machina put a stop to the Nanocreature War?” Saito added.

Kaoné passed the Colonel a wary look before sighing and turning away. “…It does. But it’s a long story, longer than is appropriate for the moment.”

“Fair enough.” Saito then looked over at MacTavish. “It’s true that we don’t have much time. MacTavish, have you found anything yet?”

“W-well, it, um, i-it’s locked down…” the Research responded. “I-it looks like, um, i-it’s gene-locked…”

“It would figure…” Hackett muttered.

“B-but, I can at least, um, t-tell what it is…” MacTavish continued, closing her laptop and turning to give the rest of the group a hopeful look. “Th-this… this is it. Th-this is the cure machine!”