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AGNES STORY SUMMARY

disclaimer: there's so many typos in this. quality of writing in this summary i wrote at 3 in the morning on my phone and did not proofread will not reflect the quality of writing in the final novel

PROLOGUE

Interlude: Remembrance / 1

A woman laments someone she has lost -- someone who passed by her like a beautiful comet and then disappeared. She mourns that the only way she can reunite with that comet now is by closing her eyes and seeing the impression of its blindingly bright light burnt into her retinas.

She decides that she will recount the story one more time.

ACT I

Section 1: Terra

We follow Terra, a recently hired patrol guard at this Biotech Research Institute. It's a fine job, easy, pays surprisingly well, and one of the scientists working there is a friend of hers named Heidi.

Heidi was also hired a while ago to work on what seems to be the lab's main project, a clone lamb gestated fully in an artificial womb with no surrogate mother. The woman overseeing this project is their supervisor, Delia, an amiable older lady who always has a calm smile on her face. Delia acts as a middleman reporting to their boss, director Agnes, a strange distant woman who is almost always in her office. Or, if not in her office, spending her lunch breaks outside staring at a leaky pipe at the back of the building. Bizarre.

Interlude: Preserval - Incipient / 1

There is a man. He is resting peacefully, suspended in the fluid of the tank like he is floating.

Anyway, Terra always passes by this sculpture in the front yard of the research institute. A man, smiling. It has a plaque marked with nothing but the initials of a name, a birth year, and a death year. Surely this is a memorial sculpture? But of who? After so many times walking past it, she gets curious enough to ask Agnes.

To which Agnes answers "I don't know," and refuses to elaborate.

"What the hell is going on with this woman. You're the director how do you not know who the memorial sculpture in the front yard is," thinks Terra. She decides to start sleuthing around a bit.

Interlude: Remembrance / 2

The woman recounts some of her life -- an unpleasant childhood with a mother always working and a father always drunk. Often, she would be the one watching after her little sister, though she was still a child herself. She came to the belief, still young, that she was doomed and made only to march into hell. Oh well.

Terra finds out Agnes' last name (which she bizarrely was not ever told), tries to search about her online and only finds a few boring research papers and photos of her dancing submitted to an obscure photography magazine for a contest (???), nothing particularly interesting. Upon researching the research institute itself, she also can't find anything interesting, just that it's been around for a pretty long time.

Well that was boring and unsuccessful. Terra is still suspicious about Agnes but there are more important things to worry about -- namely, that Terra's sister is expecting a baby very soon and she wants to help support her, etc etc.

Terra decides to ask to pick up extra hours to save up money and then take some time off when the baby is born. Agnes agrees.

The first time Terra stays late, she's walking around the halls and notices ... Delia's office door left open? Ooh. Well she can't resist the temptation to snoop around a little bit -- she takes a quick look inside.

On Delia's desk is a photo. A girl, unmistakably the faces of a younger Agnes, and a boy...the man from the memorial sculpture?

That's definitely them as children. So Agnes did know him. She takes a quick picture of it on her phone and leaves the office as she found it.

She eventually bumps into Delia in the halls, who looks briefly shocked and then returns to her usual smile. She's usually the only one who stays this late. "Terra. I didn't know you were still in the building," she says. Terra replies that she's working extra hours for a while and Delia is like "Really? I was unaware. Agnes must have forgotten to update me on that. Carry on."

Interlude: Preserval - Incipient / 2

The man has noticed that the fluid in his tank is draining, slowly. Over the past weeks, enough has drained that he now can float up to the top and stick his ears into the open air. It is very interesting the way things sound -- much clearer and sharper than when he's submerged in the fluid. He spends a lot of time raising and lowering his head in and out of the fluid to hear the difference. It's fun.

The woman walks in on him doing this one day. Looks at him bobbing his head up and down, becomes briefly confused, and then actually laughs a little bit. He hears her voice much more clearly, though still muffled through the glass of the tank. As she gets back to her routine of checking his vitals, he wonders if he will ever hear his own voice clearly.

Terra continues working as normal. When it's time for her to go on her break she checks in with Agnes briefly, saying, "You know, if I was prying you could've just told me."

Agnes looks at her confusedly.

"The guy from the sculpture. I saw the photo of you and him as kids. Could've just said it was personal if you didn't wanna talk about it."

Agnes looks at her even more confusedly.

Terra shows her the picture she took of the photo and then clocks out and leaves. Her niece is born and she spends her break helping take care of her.

ACT II

Section 2: Heidi

We follow Heidi, monitoring the clone lamb as it develops. The lab is a strange place. She is seemingly the only regular working on this project -- other personnel are around for short inconsistent hours in weird shifts regularly rotated so she never really gets to know them. Sometimes when she's alone in the quiet of the lab she hears strange noise that sounds like a plangent melody from beneath the floor. Sometimes she can almost make out words. How strange. Anyway, the lamb is developing well. It is almost ready To Be Born.

Interlude: Remembrance / 3

The woman recounts one instance when during a bring your child to work day, her mother showed her the research institute. A big place, which her mother was the director of. Of course she was busy all the time.

Her mother took her down to the basement to show her something interesting -- a supercomputer. Being a child, she did not particularly understand it at the time, but it did spark her interest.

Eventually she would inherit her mother's position as director. But that would come later.

Now that Terra is on break, Delia has For Some Reason taken up some of her responsibilities doing patrols, so Heidi reports progress on the lamb directly to Agnes instead. Upon interacting with Agnes more, she can tell that Something Is Off About Her. not in a suspicious way like Terra thought, but she just seems kind of troubled and stressed. Heidi decides to start talking to her more, goes from spending her lunch breaks in the break room to spending her lunch breaks outside in the same place Agnes does -- back of the building. Leaky pipe.

They make small talk. Agnes is awkward but seems pretty sincere. Heidi usually plays around on her guitar during lunch break (yes she brings a guitar to work). Though Agnes never says much, she seems deeply intrigued by her playing. Almost mesmerized.

Eventually Heidi just asks if she wants the guitar. Agnes is like "What?" Heidi is like "I have another, this is a cheap old one. Do you want it?" Agnes accepts.

Interlude: Remembrance / 4

The woman recounts one day playing at the playground -- often and her sister would play outside by themselves to get away from their house.

Then, saw a boy with a camera, around the same age as her. She saw him around often in the following days too, taking photos of the playground instead of playing in it. Eventually she asked his name.

They became friends. Close, one of the only people Agnes ever opened up to. They grew up together.

Heidi, at some point, finds the time to ask Delia about the melody she hears from beneath the floor when the lab is quiet. Delia explains it's some old equipment in the basement. Did I mention there's a basement? Nobody is allowed in the basement. She asks, too, about the leaky pipe that Agnes is always looking at. Delia responds that Heidi is a scientist and doesn't need to worry about things like plumbing.

Interlude: Preserval - Incipient / 3

The man does, in fact, get to hear his own voice clearly when one day he wakes up sputtering and coughing fluid out of his lungs.

The tank has drained enough that his whole head is out of the fluid, the mask over his mouth and nose has detached and fallen off -- he is now breathing air for the first time.

Very strange feeling.

When the woman visits to check his vitals, though, she doesn't look concerned about the tank draining or the mask falling off. So he doesn't worry. He makes vocalizations to himself, says a few words, and acquaints himself with his voice.

Section 3: Preserval - Implement

We follow Agnes. She keeps the guitar in her office, eventually brings it home, but doesn't do anything with it. Too busy with paperwork and staring at the leaky pipe. It's strange. Leaky pipe sputtering out in pulses like a struggling heartbeat. Leaky pipe. She stares at the pipe and wonders what the hell that childhood photo of her with the memorial sculpture man was.

Terra is still on break for a few days, but it turns out she actually brought home some equipment -- a walkie talkie or something. They don't want to call her in to return it while she's on break so they just arrange for Agnes to swing by Terra's house and pick it up, which she does.

And then back to her routine of paperwork and then staring at the leaky pipe and then trying not to think about that goddamn childhood photo. Who is Terra to snoop into her life like that? Her life is fine. She does not remember taking that photo, but it's not a problem. She's the director of this lab and she doesn't need to be anything else. It's fine that she does not remember her childhood when she tries to think about it? for some reason?

The leaky pipe is getting worse.

Interlude: Terra

She does return from taking care of her niece and, upon reentering the workplace, is Immediately in the mood for more sleuthing around. There is of course The Basement That Nobody Is Allowed In but she doesn't know how to go about getting into there so she tries to sleuth around in something else. A fact about Agnes I have neglected to mention until now is that she's always unavailable from 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM every Tuesday and Thursday, which Delia is always quick to remind them of if they ever try to visit her office during those times. Which in itself is not weird at all. But, discussing it while hanging out on their own time, Heidi says that during one of their lunch break chats Agnes offhandedly implied she is napping during those times.

So now Terra is like "???scheduled 30 minute Tuesday and Thursday naps?"

and after observing for a while, Terra has noticed that Delia herself always visits Agnes' office for a few minutes during those times. Nap? Delia Visit Agnes during Nap? Terra is confused as fuck and decides to see for herself what's going on.

She coordinates with Heidi and gets her to grab Delia's attention away by faking a problem with the lamb like "Ohhh Supervisor Delia can you come check the lamb's vitals it's displaying weird and I'm concerned" and then, while Heidi stalls for time, waltzes into Agnes' office to check if she's really napping.

Head on her desk, eyes closed, breathing gently. Huh. She is, in fact, really napping.

Terra debates whether to snoop around the office a bit, but before she can decide, Agnes breathing becomes more strained and she mutters something in her sleep.

"...Delia."

Terra freezes.

"...Delia? Are you there?"

Stays silent and stares at Agnes.

Agnes responds to this silence by Slowly, Shakily lifting her head. Terra panics and ducks beneath the desk, hiding. She hears Agnes' strained breathing for a while, and then a quiet "...Late," and the thud of Agnes' head falling back to the desk.

Terra carefully stands back up once she hears Agnes' breathing soften again. She leaves the office quickly after that. She thinks she sees a tiny bit of blood leaking from Agnes' nose, but doesn't stay to check.

She feels kind of weird and guilty, like she saw something she was not supposed to.

Ahem. Okay returning to Agnes' viewpoint. Heidi eventually comes in to report that the lamb has successfully been "born", released from its artificial womb with no complications. Well, that's good at least.

Her life is normal. She does not need to think about it too hard.

ACT III

Agnes listens to Heidi's various reports about the newborn lamb. It is doing well. Heidi has named it Chloe. They're keeping it in a small pen in a nursery room.

Interlude: Preserval - Incipient / 4

The tank has drained a lot. It's maybe only halfway full now. The tubes previously attached to the man's back and arms have disconnected now, so he's simply free floating in the tank.

One of the reports, though, is something different. It is not about the new clone lamb, but an older cloning project that the institute did long before Heidi was hired -- a cloned goat, sent to live on a farm once it was mature, but still with occasional reports still sent back.

It has passed away.

Normal, of course. It's fine. That happens. However, Hearing this news inexplicably causes Agnes to start spiralling pretty bad.

She stays at the office late thinking about it and maybe thinking about her life a little bit too and Hey, why is her nose bleeding? What. Huh. She maybe starts panicking a little bit and doesn't want to stay at the lab and doesn't want to go home and just unthinkingly goes to the most recent place on her mind instead.

Terra's house. She shows up at Terra's house with a nosebleed in the middle of the night. Terra is like What The Fuck but is too concerned to turn her away so she lets her stay and calm down for a while.

Something Weird is Happening With Agnes' Life. Agnes Accepts This Now.

Next day they return to work as usual and Terra is kind of trying to pretend whatever that was didn't happen, but then Agnes approaches her like "Hey. Sleuthing. You're right. Something about this lab is weird. Let's sleuth together. Basement. I've never been there either. Let's go in the basement," to which Terra confusedly accepts.

They try to go into the basement together and then Agnes' keycard immediately declines and she's like "What? I'm the? Director? My keycard should work on everything why is? It? Not?"

Delia walks in on themand they scramble to try and come up with a lie for what they were doing, which Delia sees through completely and just very gently goes "Agnes. You have no need to go down there. Don't worry about it." and then changes the subject while leading them away.

"Hey, you know, I hear in a few days there's gonna be a storm that might knock out the power to this lab so why don't we get started on preparing for that instead?"

Agnes and Terra are both a little bit freaked out by how gently she reprimanded them with the same smile on her face as always. but it has, in fact, been raining lately and there are, in fact, reports of a big storm.

They do spend the next few days preparing for that instead of sleuthing.

... But Oops! The Storm Happens Earlier Than Expected And Causes A Power Outage During What Was Supposed To Be A Normal Workday.

Interlude: Preserval - Incipient / 5

His tank is fully empty by now. He's sitting on the ground, which he has never done before.

Suddenly the lights go out and the man's tank opens.

Everyone is trying to get their bearings straight in the dark. Heidi checks on the lamb in it's pen and realizes that It Fuckin Escaped and she's like Uh oh. They all reconvene in the break room and decide what to do -- Delia and Heidi will go to the power room to get some backup power going, Agnes will go look for the escaped baby lamb, and Terra will, uhhhh, help. Agnes with that. definitely.

(in actuality Terra goes to sleuth in Delia's office while the power is out and all the doors are unlocked. Agnes approves of this.)

Anyway, Agnes starts wandering the halls looking for the lamb. Flashlight in hand, alone, vast dark cold hallways. She hears something moving around. It sounds, perhaps, bigger than a baby lamb? but she follows it anyway because what else could it be. She catches sight of something turning a corner and pursues.

When she gets there, caught in the beam of her flashlight, is the lamb. Sitting on the floor, docile, calm. There is a man kneeling next to it, hand gently placed on its soft white wool.

It is the man from the memorial sculpture. He is staring at her with an inscrutable expression.

Agnes drops the flashlight and the sound startles the man, who runs away, disappearing around another corner like he was never there. Once Agnes has regained her composure enough, she scoops the lamb up in her arms and returns to the break room, just sitting there.

Terra eventually returns from sleuthing, comes back to Agnes saying she found something in Delia's office that they need to discuss.

Agnes looks at her for a moment. "I think I need to stop with all of this. For a while."

Terra is about to say something or ask what she means but notices how shaken Agnes looks and just quietly goes "...okay."

ACT IV

Agnes takes some time off of work. Stays home for a while and reflects on her life. Realizes how little she's been living until now. Most of her time has been spent at the research institute and she clearly hasn't even been in control of that.

She picks up that guitar Heidi gave her, finally puts some time into playing it. It's difficult. But she gets better at it after a while.

Interlude: Remembrance / 5

The woman recounts how happy she was when they eventually began dating and moved in together after a few years, how it felt to be in a new house with a new life. Happy.

She recounts -- this is her favorite part -- how they stood in the empty living room, light shining through the windows, and she took his hand and asked him to dance. Something like a waltz, very simple, no music, only their footsteps. Eventually she spins him and lowers him into a dip, looks at his face illuminated brightly by a warm beam of sunlight, and thinks to herself that she would burn this memory into her retinas if she could.

Eventually Agnes has calmed down enough and found some resolve. Whatever is happening she is determined to deal with it and start really living from now on.

She returns to work and ask what it was that Terra wanted to talk about.

"Ah," Terra says, "Well, I Wanted To Say That I Found A Fucking Obituary In Delia's Office. Your Obituary. Old Newspaper. Apparently, you died years ago."

Agnes is like "WHAT the fuck do you mean?"

Okay. Well. That has strengthened her resolve to figure out what's going on.

Interlude: Remembrance / 6

Of course, the happiness could not last. She recounts that the man passed away, eventually, and recounts how she grieved and grieved.

This is when her life, too, ended.

And the recounting is over now too -- one last time going over it in full, from the beginning to the end. Now, why not focus only on the good?

Agnes wants to know about the man she saw during the power outage too, so she decides to try something. She stays late until everyone has left the building (except for Delia), and then goes to the power room and Shuts Everything Off Herself. Manual Power Outage. She immediately runs through the halls to see if the man will show up again and Hey, Look At That, She Finds Him. This time when he runs she Follows.

She chased him all the way down to the basement entrance, where the door is open due to the power outage. He goes in. She pursues, and they find themselves in a blank white room.

She's never seen this room before. Why is it here? But the man has finally stopped running, staring at her cautiously and curiously. She takes this as her opportunity to speak to him,

And Then The Power Suddenly Comes Back On And The Door Locks And Agnes Suddenly Feels Very Faint Before Kneeling And Passing Out.

Section 4: Delia

Delia has had a long life. Strange life. Not very pleasant life. But it is one she is resigned to now.

Mother always working at the research institute, father always drunk. She grew up with Agnes, relied on her. Oftentimes they would escape the suffocating environment of Inside Their House by going outside and playing at the playground.

One day, they saw a boy with a camera, taking photos of the playground and the sky and the flowers growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. He introduced himself as Angus and quickly became friends with the sisters, particularly Agnes.

So they grew up together. Eventually Agnes and Angus started dating, and eventually Agnes became director of the research institute like her mother was before her, and eventually Delia was left behind. She largely lost contact with her sister.

And then eventually came the news that Angus died, and Agnes was in mourning, and eventually came the phone call that Agnes had an idea which she had already set into motion -- to preserve her mind and her memories of Angus by transferring herself into the supercomputer in the basement of the research institute. Well. Agnes, stubborn, cannot be convinced to change her mind, but Delia loves her sister too much to let her destroy herself alone. So she helps, stays with her.

Eventually her body dies and her consciousness is fully contained in the supercomputer. To explain her death, Agnes creates a clone of herself. Rudimentary clone, no consciousness, just a decoy body. She has Delia carry it out to the lake and toss it in, dressed in heavy gowns that will swell with water and drag it down.

News of Agnes' tragic drowning circulates in local newspapers, Delia pays for an obituary to be printed but not put online. Publicly, Delia takes over the lab now that her sister is "gone".

So Agnes' consciousness is preserved in the supercomputer. Sometimes she likes to sing old love songs in the buzzy, rudimentary synthetic voice that the computer can produce.

But eventually it is not enough. Memories are different in this form, just data, and all she can do is think and think and think, wouldn't it be nice to see the memories play out again?

So she clones herself again, puts a chip in this one's brain and false memories of a childhood and a life. And she has this clone run the research institute for a while to free up some of Delia's time so she can help facilitate the creation of one more clone, Angus.

And then when both clones are complete and given the brain implants they can go in the white room in the basement, fall unconscious, and reenact the memories.

Delia checks in every so often with Agnes -- if she doesn't have the time to go down to the basement then she just communicates with her via the clone since the brain chip can also induce unconsciousness and allow Agnes to speak through her like a glorified walkie talkie. Was supposed to be a function that allowed her to use the clone as a remote body but it ended up unfeasible to utilize since, while technically possible, any movement beyond speaking through her is extremely taxing.

It has been difficult continuing with this for so many years. She doesn't want to anymore.

One night, all the power shuts off with no explanation, only herself and the clone in the building. She fumbles in the dark for a while, finally manages to turn the power back on, and then cannot find the clone anywhere.

She realizes -- oh, she must have been the one who turned the power off. And if she is not in her office, and not in the break room, and not in any of the normal rooms, she must have tried to get into the basement.

Section 5: Preserval - Incipient

We follow the man. He stares at Agnes, unconscious, having apparently gone to sleep on the floor. He kneels and pokes at her, and when she doesn't respond, he leaves her alone and sits in a corner of the room.

Until She Stands Back Up.

He looks at her. Her eyes are still closed and her breathing is becoming strained. She is not awake. But she holds out her hand.

The man tilts his head and stares at her. He approaches and takes her hand.

She puts her other arm around his back and begins taking rhythmic steps -- he follows, clumsily, more curious than anything. Her eyes are still closed. For a while they continue, something like a waltz, very simple, no music, only their footsteps. Eventually she spins him and lowers him into a dip.

Blood drips onto his face.

Her nose is bleeding, rather badly. He becomes concerned. If whatever is happening is causing her to bleed, then maybe it shouldn't be happening.

He tries to wake her up, to no avail, lets go of her hand and shakes her. Her eyes do not open. She continues the dance alone, stepping gently, arms still out like she's holding someone even though the man has left. He retreats back to the corner of the room, becoming panicked, unsure what to do.

And Then The Door Opens And Someone Steps Inside.

It Is The Woman Who Checks His Vitals. Delia.

She beckons him to come out of the room, to which he obeys because he trusts her, and then she goes in and forcefully pulls Agnes back out of the room too. It takes a significant amount of effort, but once she's out of the threshold of the room she immediately opens her eyes again, collapses -- Delia lowers her gently onto the floor and sits next to her. The man follows.

He observes as the two have a conversation. He learns their names are Agnes and Delia. He doesn't particularly understand all of it, but Agnes is saying lots of things like "What The Fuck Was That What's Happening Where Am I Delia Wha"

Delia seems to explain. Somewhat. He doesn't really get what they're talking about. But after a long conversation, Agnes gets up. She wipes the blood off of her nose.

"We are not staying here. We are leaving," she says, and takes his hand. She walks out of the room, not looking back -- he does briefly turn to wave bye to Delia though.

She leads him through the halls. He still doesn't really understand what's happening. Eventually they get to a big door he's never seen before and they step outside -- and suddenly above them is the vast night sky, dark and twinkling with stars. There's rough pavement beneath his feet, and then grass, and he can feel the cold air through his skinsuit. It's exhilarating. In the front yard of the building he sees a statue of a man who looks like him, who his gaze lingers on even as Agnes continues leading him forward.

Throughout all of this she's been walking quickly, footsteps heavy, almost angry seeming, but her hold on his hand is gentle. So she's not mad at him, he assumes. Eventually, after a long time of walking and following, she finally starts to slows down.

They stop at a playground. an empty one. Agnes didn't lead them here for any reason she was just walking to get far away from the research institute. No plan. The man sits at a bench and Agnes paces, stressed.

"What's wrong?" he asks her.

"I don't know. Everything. What am I supposed to do after this?" she answers, for some reason, still pacing. She starts talking, more to herself than to him, about whatever is going on, trying to process it and figure out what to do next. He stares at the swings curiously while she rambles.

But eventually her pacing slows, and she gets a distant look in her eye, and her speaking stops.

"...What's wrong?" he asks again.

"Uh. Nothing." She does not sound sure of herself at all. She squats low to the ground and rests her arms on her knees.

“You don't look well," he says

She Immediately Collapses Forward onto The Fucking Floor Again.

"Agnes?" He steps toward her and kneels down, puts a hand on the shoulder of her unconscious body. With a close look, he can see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes, a slow rhythm, with pauses between her exhaling and inhaling again.

"...Angus," she mutters, barely audible. He begins to approach closer, but she startles him -- her hand moves suddenly, plants itself onto the ground, and she starts to push herself up. An instinct tells him to recede; back away and watch her.

Hair hanging in messy strands, head down, face parallel with the floor, he can’t see the expression she’s making as she attempts to rise. He can see her arm is shaking, though, badly, like it’s about to give out as it struggles to support her -- and with a sharply cut-off exhale, a barely held back reflexive cough, there’s a dark splatter that colors the ground beneath her face.

It’s blood. Again.

Something is wrong. Something is breaking inside of her. He understands this, lean in closer, reaches out quickly to put his hand on her shoulder. As he makes contact, she tilts her head up to look at him -- a strained and uneven movement. The eyes she's staring through are squinted, kept barely open. Her nose is bleeding. The red is dripping onto her teeth, which are bared in a grimace, making its way down to her chin.

He is worried. Delia isn't here this time.

Agnes tenses, trying to stop herself from coughing again. Then, once more comes her wavering voice -- "Angus."

He can't parse the emotion infused in her tone, can't tell what she's feeling by her face. What is he supposed to say? Quickly, he tries to figure out some way to respond, find something he can ask her -- "What's wrong?" or "What's happening?" or "What do I do?" -- but none of those are sufficient, and none of them will help, and he ends up unable to say anything at all before she puts out her other hand and forces her upper body off the floor.

She begins to speak. He doesn't understand all of it. Something about "You cannot leave," something about "you cannot stray from the purpose for which I created you, as a shadow cannot stray from what casts it," something about the way she's speaking is different, and he realizes --

"You're someone else."

"What?" she says.

"You're not Agnes."

She stutters in response. He meant it as a simple statement, but something about it seems to have left her speechless. She searches for something to say for a very long moment, and then gives up. She falls back to the pavement.

Section 6: Preserval - Implement

Agnes wakes up again. Head hurts. Body hurts. Nose bloody again.

"Agnes. Are you okay?"

She groans and sits upright. Asks what the hell happened. Angus briefly explains that she passed out and her nose started bleeding and she started saying some Weird Stuff About Not Leaving And Blah Blah Blah.

Agnes sighs shakily. Realizes she cannot move on from this until whatever the hell is happening to her Stops. and she will Make It Stop.

She drops Angus off somewhere safe -- Terra's house. Terra is like "WHAT the FUCK" when Agnes shows up at her door, nose bloody, with The Man From The Memorial Sculpture by her side, saying "Please watch him for a while. I need to do something. I will explain later." but she has such a haunted look on her face that Terra just listens -- and then she goes back to the research institute.

She visits the back of the building a last time. The leaky pipe has come fully loose and fallen off, laying on the ground in a puddle. She picks it up and heads back inside the building.

Delia is still inside. She tells Delia to shut off power to The Room That Makes Her Pass Out so she can get through to the deeper levels of the basement. Delia does so without question.

In the basement she finds the supercomputer. And it greets her.

"So you made it down here," it says, tone completely unreadable, a loud buzzy voice ringing out from some speaker somewhere in the ceiling. "Hello."

"What the hell are you?" Agnes asks.

"I am Agnes," the supercomputer replies

They talk. Agnes demands to know all of what's happening. The supercomputer explains what Agnes and Angus were created for -- clones to be used as bodies for reenact memories. She explains it plainly, as though it is nothing. Agnes is shaking with rage the entire time. When she yells, it talks down to her like she's a child throwing a tantrum

"You know nothing of grief or loss," says the voice, and Agnes tightens her grip on the pipe incredulously. Nothing of grief, said to Agnes, grieving the life she never had and the pretense of normalcy which was ripped away from her. Nothing of grief, said to Agnes, learning that she and Angus were created to march into hell unknowingly.

She raises the metal pipe, fighting off faintness and drowsiness and forcing herself to move despite it, and brings it down onto one of the supercomputer's structures. Raises the pipe again and bashes it down in fury and ignores the terribly loud buzzy noises from the speakers that sound like screams. She yells about how this is her life and she is taking it back as she breaks everything. Agnes is alive. Agnes is her name.

Eventually she stops, breathing heavily, wipes the blood off of her nose.

"The chip in my brain. Whatever it was. Can you deactivate it?"

"...Yes." The supercomputer's answer is stuttery. Broken.

"Deactivate it."

The supercomputer asks if she's sure, since that will unsuppress the memories of her actual "childhood" and she will be completely unable to cling to any thin veneer of normalcy that the false memories provided. Apparently it's still trying to leverage something over her even in its dying moments. As if Agnes hasn't already been thoroughly disillusioned with everything. Of course she's sure.

With that, she leaves.

EPILOGUE

Section 7: Agnes & Junior

Time passes. Agnes lets Angus live with her. They see each other more like siblings than anything else -- at some point he started going by the name "Angus Junior" because someone (probably Terra) explained the concept of being named after someone to him, and then eventually just shortened it to Junior.

The clone lamb from the lab is doing fine. Heidi is taking care of it. Junior is rather fond of it, too, seeming to relate to it in some way.

Agnes remembers her actual upbringing now, raised in the basement of the lab, taken care of by Delia. Apparently she was not even supposed to be named Agnes -- Delia simply spent a lot of time speaking to her, rambling, using the name "Agnes" because she was supposed to be memory wiped and wouldn't remember it anyway.

"You were a good sister when we were kids, Agnes. And I miss you. Even though you're still here," things she wouldn't understand, said more to herself than to Agnes. But the name stuck even through the memory wipe and she wouldn't respond to anything else.

She reconciles her real past with her future -- one she will choose for herself. She sits on a bench at the playground and plays the guitar while Junior plays on the swings.

#agnesposting

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