//------------------------------//
// Observations: 16: Ouroboros 
// Story: Daring Do and the Throne of Ouroboros 
// by Tolerance 
//------------------------------//

	"Welcome back, Doctor. I take it that your mission was a success?" The slightly transparent avatar asked as it greeted Aaron.

"In a way. You were right, Sentinel, there was a pattern to the attacks." Aaron said, sporting his original, human, form. "It calls itself Harm."

"Then we are on schedule?" the snake-like apparition asked with a hiss. "Or can I resume the simulations?"

"Continue construction on the facilities, but prepare a patch for the other worlds before you reset them. We'll need to remove the Beta consoles from their source code before this Harm can establish any more connections. And what did I tell you about using that Avatar?"

"Our apologies." The AI stated before reverting to a more reasonable form. "Were you able to procure a code sample from the Harm entity?"

"No. Unfortunately, what little I observed, I was forced to delete. I believe that the code itself is virulent, especially when it can establish a connection with its source. Keeping a sample without proper containment would be dangerous."

"I believe this world has caught up to the same time frame as our little escape's before she left. Whether her doppleganger exists or not, I was unable to ascertain. If she does exist, it's likely that her timeline has divulged away from repeating events. A shame, really, if her skillset was even a portion of that unicorn, she could prove useful. Either way, we'll keep this world open for observation. Keep a look out for that attack pattern, and notify me if you detect it again."

"And what of the rogue entity?"

"Start work on overriding the comm relays. We’ll flood all channels with a request contact message asking for her specifically, but use her given name, not the identifier you used before. In fact, I’ll send you the exact message package I want sent. If she's been looking for what I think she is, then shel won’t be able to resist contact when the relays start up again."

"You wish to bring her here?"

"She's got the only other world with an access point that Harm might be able to use. I don't know exactly what she did to partition her part of the simulation, but we can’t take the chance that it may be subverted, or worse."

"Was your interactions with this harm entity really so dreadful? You expressed far more concern regarding this entity than what we would quantify as normal."

"Can't argue with you there. I think, deep down, a part of me worries that I finally found what I was looking for."

"A way to help the human race?"

"No. The reason for our decline..."

~~~~~

Sentinel fully occupied, Aaron migrates his consciousness to a very special room. A single hardline connection lies between the station's servers and the cold room, tucked away between server cooling towers of a disused corner of the facility. Easy to miss given the gratuitous size of the Station, especially if you didn't know what to look for, not even the AI knows the full details of the rooms existence. A single unconscious form inhabits the space, locked in a sealed pod kept near absolute zero.

Aaron examines the body, his body, through the local interfaces. If he wanted to, he could leave the digital realm and upload his mind into his cranial implants, and return to the real world, but that is not the reason for this visit. 

Medical scanners come to life, simple hologram interfaces show a complete replica of his body outside of the pod. A few simple commands later, and Aaron has filtered out all of the unnecessary information. The holographic representation of his form is riddled with several dark patches. Corruption.

A quick summary is given. The corruption has spread, if only a little bit. An impossibility given the conditions, but Aaron has seen this before. It is why he believes he is the last of his kind. Once the disease reaches the implants, death is certain.

Aaron has always known that his time was limited, now more so than ever. But now he knows the source of the corruption.

Harm.

Securing power to the scanning equipment, Aaron retreats through the encrypted system. There are things that must yet be done. Things that can't be accomplished while worrying over the body of a single, dying man.

Humanity must live on, after all.