Sophie Strange in the style of Félicien Rops, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.

  Chapter 5: Extraordinary machine

  Expedition headquarters, Mikla metropolitan area, Confluence dimension

  Year 42 of the Confluence Republic (local time)

  They debriefed her as soon as she returned. None of the others made it. All Sophie could feel was numbness.

  The debriefing was partly intended as therapy for her trauma exposure, as per standard protocol, but the whole Expedition leadership was present. She understood, on a rational level, that they needed to know, but she was not exactly in the mood for it. She was in the mood for doing nothing but sleeping for a very long time.

  Still, this was the job. This was why the others had tried so hard to get her out. Sophie held back her snark and just acted out her role. Like a professional, she thought, not really caring.

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  She shared her memories via the Transmission field. They thought it was important that the shadows had registered not as life, but as movement. The fact that they were energy vampires registered as concerning, and the fact that their main target seemed to be the dimension itself as bizarre. Nobody knew what to make of it.

  The explorers’ obfuscation seemed strong enough to avoid the shadows’ attention, until Sophie set up her final dimensional shift flow. She had added basic obfuscation, as per standard protocol, but obviously something more was needed. Setting up the return flow normally took only a fraction of a second and was not something one needed to hide very well, but clearly that was a mistaken assumption in this realm of fog and shadows.

  Bilk’s final light burst obviously made a difference. It made enough room for Sophie to shift herself out of there. Unemotionally, she raised the possibility that if she had not been in a state of panic, perhaps the light burst actually provided enough breathing space to wrap everybody in the shift flow. Light generation, perhaps unsurprisingly, appeared to be a good weapon against shadows, so explorers going into this dimension should bring along someone like Bilk, who had strong STEM capabilities.

  She was going to miss him, she found herself thinking, without really feeling it. Instead, she just felt empty, like a shadow, perhaps, or a machine. I’m good at being uncomfortable, her mind declared, getting past it by not actually feeling it.

  Towards the end, they congratulated her on doing a great job, but she thought that’s probably standard protocol for explorers who had barely escaped with their life. Make them feel good about themselves, give them a medal, maybe it will help them get through it. She thanked them and said that she was going to sleep for a long time now, then, surprising herself, added that she would like to continue working on the shadow dimension in some capacity, that it might even be important to her. She would appreciate being kept in the loop.

  She felt it, later.

  The shadow dimension in the style of Félicien Rops, as interpreted by DALL-E in February 2025.