Vertin: Where did the Physician go? Wait.
Vertin: Sir, are you ...?
No one notices when the unfamiliar prisoner appears.
He seems calm and almost ordinary, like an unchanging mirror that has stood here all along—in this room, in this labyrinth, passed unseen by everyone.
Recoleta: pant
The answer she now sees plainly makes her step back in a panic.
But in the end, she says the name out loud. Its sound is heavy, cold, and leaves her at a loss.
Recoleta: Aleph.
Recoleta: It's you, my pen pal.
Recoleta: You are in fact in Comala.
Recoleta: All those letters, all the ideas we shared—they weren't just my imagination or some prank. Vertin, Sonetto, it's all just as I told you!
Recoleta: They weren't meaningless. pant They're all real.
Yet, why does she feel no joy?
Vertin: So, sir, are you Aleph, the ruler of this prison?
Vertin: Are you the one controlling the Panopticon with a die? The one hiding Ms. Dores's whereabouts?
Aleph: What curious inquiries, quite different from the last 2666 questions I've received.
Aleph: My guests, you may call me Aleph, or by any other name, be it a symbol of god's oneness or a farcical epithet.
Aleph: I am merely one of the many prisoners who voluntarily reside here—a single letter in the alphabet of the Panopticon.
Vertin: A letter ... The way you speak is quite different from Dr. Merlin.
Vertin: Still, I wonder what your relationship is with him.
Under the dim lighting, the man looks drained of all energy.
Vertin: But allow me to make a guess: You're Dr. Merlin, aren't you?
Aleph: I'm afraid that's not entirely accurate, but you may think of it that way.
Aleph: Merlin is a figment born of my mind, an incomplete reenactment. He is me, yes, but not entirely.
Aleph: He—or rather, they—failed to find their answers.
Aleph: They fought against their predestined fates, only to be inevitably crushed under their weight. I simply stood by and watched it all unfold. That was the extent of our relationship.
Vertin: "They"?
Aleph: You've already met Merlin and the Idealist—even witnessed their demise.
Aleph: Shackled by the delusions of verses, the Idealist lost his own name. Merlin, too, imprisoned himself within the system of the Panopticon.
Aleph: I'm sure their desperate pursuits caused you some trouble.
Aleph: Please forgive them. After all, your fleeting encounters led to the demise of them both.
Vertin: I think I understand now. The Idealist and the Physician are both parts of you, or, to put it another way, they're your alter egos.
It seems the jailer's diagnosis, that the whole prison is mad, has been shown to be more accurate than anyone could have imagined.
Sonetto: The Physician mentioned Manus Vindictae. What's the relationship between this prison and the Manus?
Aleph: Visitors from the Foundation, we all witnessed those eras perish.
Aleph: In 1977, not long before the fourth "Storm," I arrived in Ushuaia. Shortly after, some members of the National Foucault Studies Association reached out to me.
Aleph: But it wasn't just them. An arcanist organization called Manus Vindictae also approached me. Each of them wanted answers. They named me their "advisor."
Sonetto: You acted as an "advisor" to the Manus?
Aleph: The two parties presented me with a concept and a parable, respectively.
Sonetto: A concept and a parable?
Aleph: The Foucault Association sought to explore the feasibility of the Panopticon concept here.
Aleph: While Manus Vindictae showed me a parable of the past and future.
Aleph: Day and night, I wandered through endless texts, endless realities, as I searched for answers. And thus, Merlin was born. He was both an experiment and a price I paid.
Aleph: A new concept, a new direction ... Pursuing such things always leaves me confined by the limitations of human knowledge.
Aleph: Merlin spent his entire life exploring Foucault's theories in pursuit of that singular yet infinite answer.
Vertin: What about the Manus, Mr. Aleph? You didn't explain why you helped them.
Aleph: Explain why?
Aleph: Because they asked me to, just as you have.
Aleph: I simply worked to answer their questions.
Vertin: So you're saying that, to you, we're no different from Manus Vindictae?
Vertin: And if we ask, you'll answer us, without holding anything back?
Aleph: Is that not precisely what is happening this very moment?
Vertin: ...
Aleph picks up the fallen die. It flickers with a familiar, comforting glow.
Aleph: This is what the Manus gave Merlin, a magical die named the Tear of Comala.
Aleph: It was once a gemstone that belonged to a god. At the beginning of the century, explorers plucked it from an ancient gate they discovered in Antarctica.
Aleph: To the explorers' amazement, the gemstone could turn human desires into reality.
Aleph: So, they cut it into a die, a symbol of fate, and used it to build a sanatorium, which was later transformed into the Panopticon you are standing in right now.
His words are direct, yet they still leave the outsiders perplexed.
Recoleta: Then, Aleph, you really are the mastermind behind the Panopticon?
The silent girl grips her notebook. Her knuckles turn white from the pressure.
The draft of an unpublished novel, with words that only she knows—the countless hours spent at her desk, the self-reflections, the meticulous questioning, revisions, and scrutiny of every word.
That book holds the life of its writer.
Recoleta: You said Merlin used the Panopticon to seek his answer. W-What does that have to do with my novel?
Recoleta: I don't get it, Aleph. Why would you use my novel to manipulate this place?
Recoleta: Roberta, García, Octavia, Pablo, the jailer, everyone ... Not one of them deserved to be trapped in a deadly loop in which everyone's fate is already predestined.
Recoleta: They're just like the ghosts in Amalfitano, inescapably trapped within the ruins.
Recoleta: Tell me, what is it you really want?
Hearing this, the lonely prisoner fidgets with the die, looking puzzled.
Aleph: It's not about what I want. It's about what you want.
Aleph: The third line of your first letter.
Aleph: You said you wanted to give The Rise and Fall of Sanity an ending.
