It's been a month - no, more, much more, since I wrote here.

Saisio was, well.

What is the way, the impression you feel, when words escape you? Perhaps they are empty, or perhaps simply not there, but only the pattern of emotion remains, like mumbled echoes.

I have forged ties with the Cartel. I have spent hours gardening on Saisio. I've spent time trying to put back together the pieces of myself. I've joined a war, and fought, and died.

Perspective, I think, is what I have garnered from my time on that fractured planet. A very simple sort of perspective, I suppose, but it is more a willingness within than an intellectual bit of knowledge. To know, and to be.

Of course, that does not change what I am, any sense of detachment is useful for a more objective analysis, but does not define. Definitions may be illusions, but illusions still exist, and I find my place with the use of them.

What is my place? Should I strive to be the best soldier I can be? The best pilot? And what are those things? I still need to forge a definition I can fit, I think. But at least I recognize the need.

I'm on a shuttle bound for Saisio. Down to the surface. To a world I've never been to. Except I have.

He has.

We have.

We've been talking to Aria, again. She seemed concerned for him, with the confusion and the...things we've forgotten. Or the things we never knew, I suppose. Like what ships he's bought, or...

She was upset at him, I think, for what he did. She cares about him, obviously, but he can't seem to see it. And I know that he should know, but I can't quite believe it either, after the things he's done.

He lost another ship, in Syndicate. It was the first time I'd ever seen a bubble, and I just...panicked. Not that it mattered. He...we...calmly told the crew to abandon ship, then tried to keep it in one piece as long as possible. It was terrible – the shouting, the crying, the panicking. Most of them made it off, I know, but too many didn't. Even one is too many.

I've been writing them, their families, all seventy-eight of them. Because someone should tell them. I would want to know if my father, or brother, or sister had died. And how.

Except, I don't think, really how. Not that they were scared, suffocating, burning ... I'd want to think that I knew, I'd want to think that I knew it was quick, and painless, and too fast to even be afraid.

But it's hard, trying to think of the right words to say. Things like Dear sir, your son perished in compartment twenty when the section was exposed to vacuum don't really seem right, not when you know the truth is when I closed the compartment door so the other thirty-five crew wouldn't be exposed.

But it is true, isn't it? Sometimes you make decisions so that others can live. Like when you destroy a Blood Raider to save the people they are attacking. Like when you save the person closest to shore because you can't reach the other going down for the last time. Sometimes, Fortune and the River decides.

And you can't fight the flood. All you can do is go with the current, and keep your head above water.

And hope for a friend with a rope.

I feel sick. Nauseous.

Typically, I would just jump to another clone. But I already did that, did I not?

She's with me, forever.

It was a normal mission, go stop a raiding Matari party that was threatening Syndicate sovereignty. I honestly don't understand why the Federation and Republic have a problem with their existence...a stain on their reputation, I suppose. The lost and outcast. Perhaps that's why she does not have a problem with my defense of them.

Defending the lost and the outcast. And the criminal and dangerous, I suppose. Nothing is perfect.

I lost a Raven. An IT gang came in, and I hid, because what can even a dangerous predator do against ten or so other predators? And then they started to probe me out. I saw the scanner probes, and I know how good they are with them. And I did not have a cloak.

I decided to try for the station. Came in from an off-angle, and of all the miserable luck, I hit the very edge of the bubble. So close to the docking apparatus. So close, and so far. So very far.

I gave the order to abandon ship. Right off. We were right by the station, they wouldn't even have to wait for pickup. And many of them, most of them, made it off.

Most, but not all. And she didn't help, screaming in my mind, Do something! Do something! Do something!n

What, precisely? Don't close that access hatch for that last person trying to make it through? That means that the ship's magazine will be breached by the plasma cloud of the next detonation. Open that door for the woman hammering on it? It's open to vacuum beyond it. She's trapped. I have to save what I can, and try to make it in to station.

We didn't. The pod systems ejected us to safety from the burning wreck, but they need not have bothered. It was a bubble, after all. And so we...I...died. Again.

By this point, I'm fairly used to it. She isn't. And so I stumbled out of the clone bay, and woke up in Isikemi. State space.

Because, she says, it's safer here. Because I won't be able to get them killed. As if I cared about...

Every time I think that. Nausea. Cold, cramping, sickness. Dry heaving into the wastebasket.

I'm going to Saisio tomorrow. Down planet. Where no one will know who I am, I hope. I will take a frigate. It will just be me. And her.

Personal Diary...

I shouldn't be here.

Shouldn't be anywhere, really.

Dead.

But I certainly shouldn't be here.

In pod school, they told us how it works: the cloning, the scanner, how it transfers your memories. That a corpse becomes you. Because of your memories.

I think they say that as much to make us comfortable with it as because it's true.

But nobody said Pilot Roth, keep in mind that someone might copy you.

To themselves.

I know that's what he did. I know because I was with him when he went down to the cloning facility, down to the rows of bodies. To my body.

No. Not with him. I wasn't with him, but I remember.

Remember being him.

Down to where my body was. Because it's gone now.

She has it. The real me. The one who went on living, and found Papa. The one who didn't sit in a chip until someone downloaded her. And then downloaded themselves over her. He didn't even know I was there.

The doctors seemed surprised that he was still -

We were still -

Alive.

There must be plenty of room in that head for you two, he said.

Joking.

I managed to smile. He couldn't.

I screamed, the first few days, and cried. But you can only cry for so long, and then you have to stand up, and do something about things.

Even if there's nothing to be done, except live with them.

But you can only fight the current so long.

I'm not her, anymore. They told him that he could expect to have lost memories, to remember things he didn't experience...because somethings were overwritten. There's damage.

To him. To me.

If memories make us what we are, like Lycana said, then I'm not her. A part of her, maybe. And he's not Vikarion, anymore.

So who am I?

Security Interview Log: A-3258B
Officer: Shasa Etelle
Subject: Leso Aridaur
Occupation: Pilot Laison, attached, Intaki Syndicate Space Police (1-NKVT-1-AA527)
Complaint: Unstable pilot.
Action taken: No action

Recording transcript begins:

Etelle: Now, Mr. Aridaur, would you mind telling me again what you were concerned about?

Aridaur: I already told you. I'd like to go home now.

Etelle: Yes, and you will, I promise you, just as soon as you tell me what you were so upset about. You seemed very worried just a few minutes ago.

Aridaur: Look, I'm sure it was nothing. It was just a bit unusual is all.

Etelle: What was?

Aridaur: Well...fine. So, I'm a laison between the agents on this station and the pod pilots, right? Well, sometimes...well, pilots can be a little private. So I run important paperwork, documents, payment chits, stuff like that, to the pilots and back to the agents.

Etelle: That sounds pretty important.

Aridaur: Well, the really expensive stuff - the ISK, the gear, those things are transferred through more secure channels. But, yes, you need a good work record. I couls make off with a lot, if I wanted to. But I don't, ma'am, don't worry.

Etelle: I'm not worried. Please go on.

Aridaur: So, I was ferrying some documents to a pilot who calls himself Vikarion - there aren't very many of us, because most pilots don't do all that much work for us, you know, since the Federation and so forth don't really see eye-to-eye with us on things, right? But this guy does, he's Caldari, so I guess that's why, though there's rumors that he used to be Sansha or something.

Aridaur: So, I get to this guy's quarters, right, and the door is open. Which is odd, but you know, whatever. So I'm like, 'Captain, sir?', and I hear someone saying something, but nothing really clear. So I go in, ok, because I just want to get this stuff signed, or my agent will have my hide. But I don't really want to, you know, because this guy is pretty weird. I mean, all of them are pretty weird - pilots - but this guy is extra weird.

Etelle: Weird?

Aridaur: Well, like, every time I went up there he was staring at this photo he had, some woman, looked kinda Caldari, I guess. And then you'll give him the paperwork, and he's all polite and everything...'thank you, sir', 'here you go, sir', but it's like you aren't really there to him. He just kinda stares at the wall through you, you know?

Etelle: I see. And that was what was weird?

Aridaur: What? No. No, this time, see, I head in, and he's sitting with his back to me behind his desk, in one of those big executive chairs. The ones that turn, right. And he's got these scribbled pictures all over the wall, and, you know, photos, of this woman -

Etelle: The Caldari woman?

Aridaur: No, some other woman. Intaki, I think, or Gallente. From the clothes. Anyway, so he's like saying something, and I come up to the desk, and I'm like, 'captain', and he spins around on me, and he's smiling this horrible smile. I mean, this was something else. And he's just kind of looking at me, and he says "I killed her, and now she's in me."

Etelle: That was it?

Aridaur: Well, no, then I was like "what?", and he says "I killed her, I killed her, and she killed her, and how can I blame her, because I killed her. And that kind of freaks me out, but not as much as how he's staring at me, because he's really looking at me for once.

Aridaur: So, you know, I hand him the paperwork, and he doesn't seem to notice, so I just drop it on the desk, and I'm like "Ok, I have to leave", and he just keeps going. "I killed her, and she's in me, and she's trying to get out, but she isn't really her, she's me!" And so I got a bit wondering if he's been killing people or something, so I don't stick around, but go find you. I mean, if he's running around killing women or something...

Etelle: Well, we appreciate your concerns, and we will certainly check it out.

Aridaur: Yeah. And maybe he just needs help or something. Anyway, I'm late for dinner, and I didn't get any breakfast. Can I go?

Etelle: Of course. Just sign this, if you would, and put your number there. There you go. Have a good evening, Mr. Aridaur.

Aridaur: You too, ma'am.

End Log Transcript.

I am I. Right?

Who am I? What a silly question. I'm me! But wait, who is me?

I remember swimming in the river. No, I remember learning how to bandage wounds in the Young Home Guard...or was that on Debreth? No, wait, that was on the Station. Except the river. But there are no rivers on stations, that's silly!

Silly? Wait. No, I don't say "silly". Do I? I can't even speak - but I can! Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Wait.

Who am I? Am I dead? Of course I'm not dead. No, I died. Did I die? No, I've died both ways. So why am I this one? No, that's...

No. No, no, no. There's the man, and the woman. One on the river, one on the station. Which one is real?

The station. I remember being young. I remember the...the...the windows! And the cold glass. And mother and father and my brother and my sister Camille. No, my sister Xia. Or was it Camille? No, Camille was in the tree. I think. Yes. No. Which one?!

No, I remember the tree, and the river, and the house, and Camille. I remember...it was so good, the smell of Mathilde's cooking. Wait, no, we didn't have a maid, no, he didn't, we did. No, I didn't she did.

No, wait, now I see, wait, wait...

There are two, she, and he. And I'm them. No, I'm her. Wait, no, him. No, wait...I can't...

No, there's the other her. She is her too. So I must be him. But I remember being her! But I can't be her. But I remember being her! I was in that body! But I'm in this one! But I was in that one!

Well, I should choose one to be. But which one am I? How can I stop being one?

Unintended consequences.

And that, I think, is the story of the last year. Unintended consequences.