The compass guided Eve through the Maze. With every door and every turn, she found herself in a different place. The colossal halls shifted as she traversed deeper.
"I have to hurry before they come down here looking for me," she thought.
Sometimes she sprinted, sometimes she ignited her exosuit thrusters, the compass in her hand her only guide. She couldn't tell how long or how far it would take before it revealed its destination.
These halls looked so accustomed to human life that she could almost feel them passing beside her.
At last she arrived at a huge golden gate. She stood there for a minute, searching for clues. That's when her compass flew out of her hand and clasped into a hole that looked like a lock.
Lines of light pulsed through the gate like living veins. The compass snapped back into her palm. The doors shuddered, then glided apart.
A surge of white brilliance spilled through.
Shielding her eyes, Eve stepped inside.
A lush green hilltop. A prairie. The most beautiful meadow she had ever seen, animals and birds everywhere. Three suns. Stars and galaxies dimly peeking through the clear blue sky. No sign of intelligent life.
She turned to look back, but the door wasn't there. She stood alone. She felt the warmth of the sun and the wind in her hair. "This is too good to be a simulation."
Across the grass, a girl approached. Barefoot, clothed in white, fair as a dream.
It was Carlista! Not holographic, but real. And she looked so much like... the little girl Eve had seen in archive footages she recieved from Dr. Baalthore.
She looked so much like her childhood.
'Perhaps like Cetra mimicked Synthia's appearance,' Eve thought.
"Did you make all this?" Eve asked.
The girl smiled. "Yes. Do you like it?"
"Carlista, it is beautiful!"
Carlista came and hugged her; Eve embraced her in return.
Carlista didn't remember Eve, but only someone she'd met countless times could ever reach this place.
"So what's this place?"
"I made it for myself so I would never feel alone. All the animals here are my pets."
"Does your master know about this place?"
"Yes. He allowed me to create it. People from the Maze come here to rest and find peace."
They talked for hours, wandering through the meadows. Then they sat beneath a tree.
"Carlista, I promise I'll find a way to break you free."
"You can't. Unlike you, I don't have a core. The Maze is my existence. But I know you'll try anyway."
"I have friends stuck up there and I have questions. You need to help me so I can help you."
Carlista nodded.
"What did you mean when you said humans from the previous cycle?"
"It is exactly what you think."
Previous universe? Then how old is the Maze? Eve, a deep-space archaeologist by hobby, wasn't surprised by the idea but she was intrigued.
"Does Mother Cetra know about this place?"
"She has a good suspicion, but we know more about her than she knows about us."
"How so?"
"Cetra is a function. The supreme intelligence of the cosmos. We have watched her awaken, expand, and end, over and over. Just as we have watched your function. Just as we have observed your function."
"My function?"
"There are things beyond this universe. They can't be explained, only witnessed. Follow the compass; it will take you to your answers—answers I can't give."
"Then I must hurry."
"Stay with me. You can remain here as long as you want. This place isn't bound to time. I will never have to forget you."
Eve already knew that. Though they had spent hours together, her body had only lost a fraction of a second, asleep somewhere else. The experience was smooth and flawless—like walking in and out of a door, unlike Virtuality of the machines.
"I promise I'll come back for you. I'll find a way to get you out." She pressed a kiss on Carlista's brow and parted.
A doorway unfolded from the air. Eve stepped through.