???'s Fathoms, part 4 (after battle)
The photographs rapidly fold away from reality,
perhaps because Kim had successfully managed to face his own past.
When the photographs and memories that were overlaid upon the fathoms are pulled away, what remains is a man in dirty, ragged clothing.
The fathoms of S Corp. slowly lose grip on this world...
... and soon reveals the fathoms of the Distortion that was hidden beneath it.
I see residents of the Backstreets in their blissful highs from taking the Canned Experiences...
... and a man who's watching them with disapproval.
Why, why, why? Why is everyone running away from all this?
A baker, always surrounded by the smell of freshly-baked bread.
A florist who makes lovely bouquets for graduating youngsters.
A photographer who captures beautiful sights to remember.
They're your... our lives. Our experiences.
You wanna be a billionaire with an extravagant mansion in a Nest? A legendary Fixer who can make the Syndicates cower in fear just by going on a stroll?
What you get from those cans is not real!
Is everything in your lives... all of this...
... just empty means to an end, so that you can get high on fake, purchased experiences nailed into a can?!
If that's all your life is, then my life... and the photographs I've taken are... all...
No, it can't be.
My life...
Those experiences and memories I've photographed are... different.
You're all blindly consuming fake experience after fake experience, without a care about the real thing... That's why you're all floundering, grasping at illusions.
So... let me show you the things I've shot.
The memories...
The experiences...
The reality of your lives.
.......
It was only in passing, but I glimpsed an unmistakable grimace, a scowl on Meursault's face.
I reflected upon the events of today, and could at least begin to guess as to why that might be.
<You don't believe there's any "experience" in either the Canned Experience or that guy's photographs, do you, Meursault?>
<Because experiences and memories aren't the same thing.>
What really distinguishes them, I wasn't sure.
Correct, Manager.
But what I knew was that the distinction was, for whatever reason, important to Meursault.
.......
Huh...?
A figure materializes into a humanoid form, swirling out of the projector.
He must be the Distortion's...
... And next to him... is another figure, stumbling out in a giant suit of armor.
B-blimey, that thing's still alive?!
It is but an overlay of fathoms created within a Distorted space. The concept of life and death has little meaning for such a thing.
Yet faint does she grow... It must be that the Distortion's power is waning.
... Hark, accused one, for these are your crimes:
The crime of fomenting chaos in a foreign Wing while impersonating Ch'unokkuns of Salpippyeo Agroindustries.
The crime of exploiting the suffering of Salpippyeo Agroindustries' downtrodden as a mere veil for one's own fathoms.
And...
... though it be but a part of reenactment, impersonating a Military Commissioner of the kingdom without the Royal Decree.
Pursuant to the law of the homeland, the accused is to be sentenced to death by beheading.
And before we even had the chance to step in or anything, the faint mirage-like warrior brought down her sword on the Docugrapher's neck, decapitating him.
Can an entity of the fathoms... slay one outside it?
Such an instance has heretofore never been observed, but... as it is happening right now, right before our eyes... I can only say "yes."
Gyeong-eop is a woman of principle.
She would have done the same to the bitter end, had she truly been here.
As the headless body of the "Inflection Point" crumples to the floor, Im Gyeong-eop's shape slowly phases out of reality...
... and we found ourselves back in the projection room.
And there...
N-no way... Don't tell me that headless corpse is -
... we found a large group of injured N Corp. staff thrown pell-mell about the room, and Ezra, who was looking down at the headless body of the Docugrapher.