A few days later, MOMO returned to her job at the AMN Administrative Bureau for the first time since her operation.

Before her arrival on Fifth Jerusalem, she had spent about a week on the Dämmerung with Vector's Third Division, undergoing preliminary analysis on her new frame. It had taken less than a day to transfer her operating system from her former body into Vector's transgenic model, but afterward she had to stay for a series of examinations to determine whether she had successfully adjusted to the transfer. Over the next few days, engineers and specialists from the Third Division had tested her physical coordination, operating system compatibility, and psychological responses and made minor adjustments as necessary.

When she wasn't required for testing, she had spent most of her free time visiting friends and former colleagues from the AMN Development Committee, many of whom she had last seen over a year ago. A number of the original members, including those from Scientia and the government, had left the Dämmerung to continue local-level development on the AMN in other parts of the Federation; those who remained had formed the core of Vector's new AMN Division, which now occupied a permanent suite of labs and offices on the Dämmerung, or had returned to their work in other divisions.

She had found Miyuki in Second, tinkering with some old AGWS frames. With no demand for new anti-Gnosis weaponry in the last two years, Vector had discontinued the VX line and shifted its focus to producing more versatile AMWS units, but Miyuki had salvaged the remaining AGWS parts and spent her free time researching ways to make them useful.

"I think I'm starting to understand how Shion felt about KOS-MOS," Miyuki had said when MOMO stopped by to visit her. "These units were slated to be disposed of, but I just couldn't bear to see them scrapped. So I snuck in and rescued them from the trash dump." She flashed a mischievous smile. "I've been taking a look at some of the research left behind by the Professor of the Robot Academy. That old guy might have been a little senile, but he made some incredible contributions to the field. I think I might be able to adapt some of his innovations to work with conventional AGWS frames."

MOMO peered up at the scaffolding around the unit Miyuki had been working on. "So you're redesigning this one? What are you going to use it for?"

"I'm not really sure yet," said Miyuki, pulling her safety visor over her face, "but it's going to be awesome." She reached down from the scaffolding. "Would you mind handing me that nano-welder?"

∞

Often that week, making her way among corridors she knew by heart, MOMO had felt an unexpected stir of longing for that time, in the first days and weeks after the Elsa departed for Lost Jerusalem and before the Dämmerung reestablished contact with the Federation, when everything was uncertain and all their hopes and fears had balanced on the construction of the new network. In the beginning, it had been their only chance of going home.

Moments before the collapse of the UMN two years ago, both the Dämmerung and the Elsa had gate-jumped to a galaxy outside Federation territory, far from any known worlds with human inhabitants. In the absence of Vector's former leadership, a group of Scientia agents who had infiltrated the corporate ranks had quietly stepped into the breach, assuming control of the main R&D divisions and reorganizing them as necessary to serve the anti-UMN group's agenda. The takeover had proceeded smoothly and without opposition, and later, when it was clear there would be no attempt to oust the new leaders, Doctus herself had admitted that taking over Vector had been among Scientia's objectives from the beginning.

Scientia had its own technology, developed in secret over the past century, but its resources and influence were limited; Vector, on the other hand, had been the single largest corporation in the universe for hundreds, even thousands of years, but after Shion and the others put a stop to Wilhelm's plans, the company had lost its focus and would have drifted without aim, like the Dämmerung itself, stranded in unfamiliar territory, if Scientia hadn't intervened and set a new course.

The AMN Development Committee had emerged from the reorganization of the company under Scientia's leadership, and had immediately set out in pursuit of another of Scientia's objectives--building a new network to replace the UMN. The first task appointed to the AMN Committee after the Elsa's departure had been the construction of a simple transfer column, linking the present coordinates of the Dämmerung with those of a former UMN column in the region of Second Miltia. Besides serving as a prototype for the network structure and a trial run for the development team, if successful the column would allow them to return to civilized space, where they could continue the project with the aid and approval of the Federation government.

Those initial steps of the project had been the most difficult. The work that came later had been more complex, orchestrated on a much greater scale, but at least by then they knew what they were doing. Building the first transfer column had been a shot in the dark, like trying to build a bridge by throwing a rope across an abyss and praying it caught hold of something on the other side. Scientia's researchers had spent nearly a century developing the blueprint for a network spanning the real and imaginary domains, along with a two-phase plan for implementing it, but until now the design existed only in theory; it had never been tested outside of simulations. Even Doctus, the highest-ranking member of Scientia present on the committee, had no idea whether it would actually work.

And at first, it didn't. Not on the first try, or the second, or the fifth. Each time, their efforts to construct a stable hyperspace column produced transient structures that collapsed within a few hours, and after each failed attempt the ensuing arguments over what went wrong and how to fix it had brought tensions within the recently-formed committee close to the breaking point. Finally, on or about the tenth attempt, they managed to open a channel through hyperspace that showed no signs of instability over a twenty-four-hour monitoring period, and with some hesitation, they declared the experiment a tentative success.

That evening, as the AMN Committee celebrated its first major achievement and the crew of the Dämmerung prepared for the gate-jump back to Second Miltia, MOMO returned to her quarters in the residential wing to prepare her final radio transmission to the Elsa. The smaller ship had been traveling at light speed for about two months now, heading towards the last known coordinates of Lost Jerusalem, and already the time difference had rendered two-way communication impractical at best. By the time Jr. and Shion and the others received her message, the Dämmerung would have long since completed the jump to Second Miltia, and the Elsa would be far out of range, unable to send a reply.

It was the worst possible time to find herself at a loss for words.

"... So I just wanted to tell you that I miss you all very much, and even though I'm proud of what our development team has accomplished here, I know I'm going to miss you even more after we leave tonight. But I promise, when we get back to the Federation we'll all be working as hard as we can, and we'll do our best to build a new network so we can reach you." MOMO hesitated, swallowing. "And, um ... I really, truly believe we'll meet again someday. All of us, chaos and KOS-MOS too. I don't know how I know, but I can feel it. Until then, I ... I wish you all the best." She had intended to say more, but her voice wavered and she had to turn away from the screen; she didn't want to end her last message in tears.

The gate-jump proceeded without incident, and after they arrived in Second Miltian space, they had sealed off the column and deactivated its AMN pulse. Although it occupied the same coordinates as one of the old UMN columns, only the members of the AMN Development Committee who had been directly involved in its construction knew the access codes that would reopen it. MOMO had wanted to leave the column open, but she knew it might endanger the Elsa's mission if other groups seeking a way to Lost Jerusalem tried to get there first.

They made radio contact with Second Miltia, and from Representative Helmer's grim assessment of the situation, they had gathered their first impression of how profoundly the world had changed in these last few months. Each planetary system--assuming any others had survived the disappearance phenomenon that had engulfed some eighty percent of the galaxy by the last available report--would have become an island in space, cut off from communication even with its closest neighbors. On Second Miltia, the months of isolation had taken their toll. Half of the planet's population had already evacuated into space before the UMN transfer columns disappeared; two years later, their whereabouts remained unknown. The remaining population faced a shortage of nearly every service and material resource necessary for maintaining a semblance of social order. The economy, heavily dependent on interplanetary commerce, had nearly collapsed, and Helmer's joyless reports on the state of affairs reflected the morale of the public. Until the network was reestablished, there would be no Galaxy Federation, and no hope of rebuilding alliances between the surviving worlds.

Fortunately, with the help of the Second Miltian government and the technology and former employees of the UMN Control Center, the AMN Committee had been able to proceed at once toward its goal of building a galaxy-wide network. The discovery of large amounts of data preserved in the imaginary domain accelerated the reconstruction process, so that in a few months contact points had been reestablished throughout the former Federation, and the surviving members of the Second Miltian escape fleet began to return home.

In her weekly reports before the AMN Committee, MOMO mapped the network's progress as a growing web of connections imposed on a map of the stars, linking Second Miltia with Atalya, Keltia, Fifth Jerusalem, all the way to distant Tessedora at the outer limit of the former Federation territory, as if the entire galaxy were being incorporated, one star at a time, into some vast constellation. In her dreams she saw bright threads extending from her fingertips like a cat's cradle, or stretching out before her like a maze of tightropes, and when she touched the glowing cords she could hear heartbeats, voices, the hopes and dreams of all of humanity pulsing between the stars. And always at the back of her mind was the awareness that somewhere in the darkness at the edge of the universe, beyond the reach of the ever-expanding net, the Elsa was on its way to Lost Jerusalem.

With reports coming in from the other surviving worlds, it became clear that none of them had weathered the last few months any more successfully than Second Miltia, and many had suffered far worse. A number had succumbed to anarchy, petty dictatorship, or civil strife, and order had to be restored in each instance: there were hundreds of minor wars and uprisings to pacify, thousands of diplomatic conflicts to resolve. While MOMO and the rest of the AMN Development Committee continued their work from their headquarters on the Dämmerung, Juli returned to Fifth Jerusalem to serve on a new Department of Interplanetary Reconciliations, formed in cooperation with the remaining members of the Federation Parliament and the Executive Committee. She was often away for weeks at a time, negotiating disputes on distant worlds, and during especially violent or politically charged situations, Ziggy volunteered to accompany her--always apologizing to MOMO for his absence, and promising that they would both return safely.

MOMO worried for them when they were gone, but most of the time she was too busy with her own responsibilities to feel lonely. Besides, she had seen the way her mother and Ziggy acted lately when they were together, and she thought some time alone might be good for them, even if they did have to spend it in the middle of a war zone.

By the end of the year the preliminary stage of the AMN Project was nearly complete, with communications and transfer columns reestablished between the major administrative and commercial centers that had escaped the disappearance phenomenon. The committee had already laid out its plans to extend network access to lower-priority sites within the following months, continuing the first phase. But then the anti-Ormus hysteria that had been gathering during the latter part of the year reached a fever pitch, and the hearings and investigations brought the AMN project to a standstill. Juli was furious, more so when she received a summons to appear before the investigatory panel herself, on charges of conspiring with the founder of U-TIC. MOMO had never seen her mother so angry.

"Oh, and they've informed me they're confiscating both of you, too," she had said to MOMO and Ziggy, her voice sharp with sarcasm as she held out the notification for them to read. "'Confiscating,' as if you were--" She gave a fierce, humorless laugh. "No, I don't believe this. I can't tell whether they want you as witnesses or material evidence. This is insane. All the work we've done in the past year to bring the world back together, and its first order of business is to turn on itself and tear itself to pieces. Honestly, I don't know why I have any faith left in humanity at all."

"Mommy, you don't really mean that," said MOMO with a gasp. "Please don't be upset. I'm sure things will turn out okay."

MOMO hadn't been so sure of it herself when she said it, but it turned out she was right; the hearing was canceled before MOMO and Ziggy were called in for questioning, and an official end to the investigations came soon afterward, with a public apology from the acting director of the Executive Committee. In the weeks and months that followed, life in the Federation gradually returned to something approaching normal. With the initial construction of the network completed, MOMO had taken a step back from her involvement in the project, leaving the AMN Development Committee under the direction of Scientia and Vector, and returning to Fifth Jerusalem to work in the AMN Administrative Bureau recently established by the Federation government. After living and working aboard the Dämmerung for more than a year, she was finally free to go home.

It felt strange coming back to Fifth Jerusalem after so much time had passed. Everything seemed different now, as if the past had happened to a different person in a different universe. And in a way, maybe it had. MOMO couldn't tell what had changed more: the world around her, or herself. Still, not all of the changes had been for the worse.

They had a proper home now, for instance. At first they had stayed in the high-rise complex where Juli had lived for many years by herself, where she had lived together with MOMO before the incidents on Michtam. But it soon became apparent that what had been a comfortable living space for one or two residents proved decidedly less so with the addition of a third person and a dog. As soon as she could afford it, Juli had arranged for their relocation to a larger apartment in the same district, one with more space and a private courtyard on a terrace overlooking the city.

Today, as she had done for the last few days since returning form her operation, MOMO awoke in her own room with the light from the courtyard slanting through the window across her bed. For a few minutes she lay gazing at the ceiling as she tried to remember where she was, and the answer occurred to her as if for the first time: I'm home.

She got up and looked out her bedroom window, past the garden beds in the courtyard and the table where her mother sat every morning to read the news, over the wall to the faint gray shapes of buildings in the haze. The orbital tower made a barely visible mark on the horizon, a spindly cord reaching up to the sky. In a different part of the city stood the low solid block of the AMN Bureau, modeled after the architecture of the former UMN Control Centers found on nearly every planet in the Federation.

As she turned from the window MOMO caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror near her bed and jumped in surprise, then laughed; more than a week after the operation, her new appearance still startled her sometimes. She dressed and went outside, pausing to run a hand over the piano keys as she crossed the living room. She had been practicing every night since she returned home.

In the courtyard, Alby trotted up to her and ran eager circles around her feet. He had regarded her warily for the last few days, as if he couldn't decide whether she was a stranger or someone he knew, but he seemed to have warmed up to her by now. She bent down, swept the little dog into her arms, and carried him over to the table. "Good morning, Mommy! Good morning, Ziggy!"

Juli looked up from the article she had been reading, smoothing the worry from her face a moment too late. "Good morning, MOMO. How did you sleep?"

"Very well," said MOMO. "It's so nice to be back in my own room." Alby squirmed and kicked in her arms. She set him down, and the instant she released him he took off as if flung from a slingshot, straight for his usual target. MOMO laughed again, watching Ziggy attempt to fend off the dog's attention. "Ziggy, he likes you."

"I'm aware of that." Pushing Alby gently but firmly aside, he walked over to MOMO. "We can leave whenever you're ready."

"All right." Before her operation, he had been accompanying her to the AMN Bureau's tactical sim lab, where she was working on approving a new combat-training simulator for the government. They had been in the process of testing the encephalon software before she left. "I'll be ready soon," she said. "I just need to have breakfast."

"There's some hot water left on the stove if you want tea," Juli called after her, as MOMO headed back into the kitchen.