Recensions

So Jules endures. They see Edith and Alejo separated on the journey back, aware how much animosity the pair share. Alejo is restrained, and sometimes Jules sees him rise to the surface. But for once Cartwright is impotent, powerless. And so the procession of Sno-Cats trundles ever-forwards.

People die on the way. More names and faces, all lost to the void of this place, where history goes to die.

But Jules make it out. Their goodbye with Edith is awkward, but earnest. A whirlwind of farewells follows, and then she's gone.

They're lucky, though they don't feel it. But when they finally arrive back home, SPRHD's vans have vanished. Their parents are delighted to see them returned, but seem puzzled and even a little concerned when they mention Antarctica. Jules decides not to push it further.

They were terrified of forgetting, once. But APERIS taught them that maybe some memories are better left dead and buried. Not everything in this world should be preserved. For now, Jules understands that keenly, more than most.

Jules sends an email to Dmitri within the first week of returning, asking if it's safe to leave SPRHD (fully aware of how untrustworthy he is). They receive an auto-reply, in both English and Russian:

Friends. It is with great sadness to report that I am ill. The doctors tell me I'm dying. So be it. I have had a long life. It has been rich, and full of joy.

I apologise for nothing. What I did, I did for myself, and myself alone.

So, за здоровье, friends.

I shall see you all in hell.

A man who redacted himself, relentlessly abusing his privileges through Cartwright purely for his own amusement. Jules is left cold by the revelation. Perhaps some people deserve to be forgotten.

After a couple weeks of recovery, Jules finally decides to quit SPRHD. The company's response is simultaneously confused, and hostile. It doesn't know how an intern received access to SPRHD's most confidential files—but it's willing to overlook this 'technical error' in return for a far-more generous severance package than normal. Jules knows they'll forget ever being the Council soon enough. If it means finally being free of SPRHD, so be it. They take what they need from the payout before donating the rest. At least it can finally do some good in the world.

In the months after APERIS, Jules is aimless. It's only when they enroll in a photography course that they reignite their passion for the craft. As they forget APERIS, they rediscover a new joy in the world through a camera's lens.

So too do they forget Edith. But perhaps Edith didn't want to be remembered, to leave Jules free of SPRHD—which seem to have forgotten Jules as much as Edith and Alejandro.

Eventually, Jules finds work in their local library's archive, digitising photos from the early 1900s. It's calming, and they're good at it too. A nice stopgap while they look for a fulltime job. Their parents ask why they won't consider SPRHD, and Jules can't really answer—somehow, it just feels wrong.

And occasionally, when it's late, and the archives are empty save for Jules themselves, sometimes they feel like those dead faces are staring intently back at them. Like for just a flash, this history is alive again.

Yet the stories here are firmly dead, and the moment passes; the only history that truly lives in any archive is buried in APERIS, and in the recesses of Jules' mind—in a lockbox of memories deep in their subconscious, that, hopefully, they can finally forget forevermore.