[ WP ] Tell me the middle of a sci-fi epic . No beginning or introduction to the setting or characters , nor any context to what 's going on , and no resolution of any kind .

The door opens and I throw myself inside as if from a storm. I wipe my brow. My sweat is cooling and, almost instantly, I ’ m shaking. A climate for metal and data, not for the corporeal. My eyes sting as I survey the hallway. The room is, as it was, piled almost to the ceiling with various detritus and waste. A nonsense of biological waste, syringes, needles and bloodied rags are a familiar welcoming party by this stage. No point in cleaning up. I suppose he thought the same. 
 
 My music has slowed to a steady drone with faint harmonics rises and falling above. I feel relaxed, comfortable initially. It ’ s like a strange kind of home, this place. Or a tomb is perhaps more apt. Though nobody would keep their loved one ’ s tomb in such a disgusting state so perhaps I do think of it as his home. I recognise elements in the music I ’ m listening to, my very own particular biometric soundtrack. It ’ s a strange sensation. As I think of this tomb, him buried so far beneath the earth, I can feel myself getting upset. I can hear it too. A certain atonality and bassy resonance. The software is emphasizing the underlying major chords, levelling the dynamics and removing all syncopation. It ’ s trying to calm me down. I focus, trying to push the shuddering, rising feedback out of my aural sphere. The exercise, the meditation of trying to alter the music, rather than alter the emotions, feels like playing an instrument, the input is so disparate from the output it ’ s hard to believe the two actions are linked. But it only really works in situations where I ’ m not interacting with anyone. It ’ s pretty damn hard to play an instrument and hold a conversation at the same time. So I remove the earpieces. This will naturalise my mood but I ’ m not in a position to use them anymore. 
 
 I head down the hallway into the central chamber. From the main chamber came a steady blue glow, lighting up the lining of refuse close to the end of the hallway. 
 
 The air gradually becomes sickly sweet as I approach the nest. The hum of electronics becomes louder and more pressing. 
 
 I turn the corner and see that disgusting alter once more. A viscous anger rises from my stomach. 
 
 How could you let me see you like this? 
 
 Like a metallic birds nest lies the Alter. Long ago, he laid his body down on this simple table in the centre of the room. Every square inch of his skin blossoms with meters of wire, tubing and sensory cables. The array of threads and spines rises up from his decaying frame like a forest, accumulating on the high ceiling before drooping back down into various esotery in the chamber. Such is the quantity of cabling and wires that enter/leave his body his shape is splayed over the table, like something pried open for observation. It is as if he had been carrying a horrible pregnancy of steel, copper and fibre and had lain down in the chamber to painfully birth the alien material out of every pore and orifice. 
 
 The first time I saw this I couldn ’ t even entertain the thought that this was him. I ran outside and vomited. It ’ s a horrific sight, still. 
 
 Next to him is a woman. She is seated in the same chair as she is every year. The woman is sat up straight, as if to attention. Once again, she is wearing clothes unlike anything I ’ ve seen in the city. Undoubtedly, she is from the Community, from the towers. The first time I came here I searched her thoroughly, fearful yet a little curious. I searched her pockets, examined her body. Nothing unusual. 
 
 Well, they ’ re all human at least. 
 
 She is his voice and his body for this session. A Peripheral. I suppose some kind of deal was arranged long ago, my considerate and loving husband loaning out another woman ’ s vocal chords and facial muscles to disturb and torment his wife from afar. The woman ’ s spine appears to be rigged up to the canopy of equipment above. Her eyes are bleak and empty betraying the fact she is now a tool of some other being. 
 
 “ He ’ s coming ”, the seated woman spoke.
